Questions  at  Issue  in 
Our  English  Speech 


Edwin   W.  Bow  en,  Ph.D. 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


Questions  at  Issue  in 

Our  English  Speech 


Edwin  W.  Bowen,  Ph.D. 


Author     of 
of  American  Literature  " 


. 


Broadway       Publishing       Company 

PUBLISHERS  JND  BOOKSELLERS 

835  Broadway,     .*.    #£en>  York 


COPYRIGHT.  1909 

BY 
EDWIN     W.     BOWEN,     Ph.D, 

All  Rights  Restrvtd 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Practically  all  the  matter  in  this  collection  of  es- 
says has  been  printed  elsewhere.  Four  of  the  arti- 
cles, "A  Question  of  Preference  in  English  Spell- 
ing/' " Authority  in  English  Pronunciation"  "What 
Is  Slang?"  and  "Briticisms  versus  Americanisms" 
first  appeared  in  the  "Popular  Science  Monthly"  and 
are  here  reproduced  with  the  kind  permission  of  the 
editor  of  that  journal.  The  paper,  "Vulgarisms 
with  a  Pedigree"  is  rewritten  from  three  brief  es- 
says on  allied  themes  which  were  published  in  the 
"Atlantic  Monthly"  and  the  "North  American  Re- 
view" The  essay  on  "Our  English  Spelling  of  Yes- 
terday— Why  Antiquated?"  is  reprinted  from  the 
"Methodist  Review."  I  wish  here  to  tliarik  the  pub- 
lishers of  these  periodicals  for  permission  to  reprint. 


s; 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Our  English  Spelling  of  Yesterday.     Why  Antiquated. ...  1 

A  Question  of  Preference  in  English  Spelling 25 

Authority  in  English  Pronunciation 88 

Vulgarisms  With  a  Pedigree 60 

Briticisms  Versus  Americanisms 82 

What  is  Slang? 108 

Standard  English.     How  it  Arose  and  How  it  is  Main- 
tained.. 130 


OUK  ENGLISH  SPELLING  OF  YESTERDAY 
—WHY  ANTIQUATED  ? 

There  is  a  marked  distinction  between  spoken  and 
written  language.  In  writing  a  system  of  conven- 
tional symbols  is  adopted  to  represent  speech.  At 
best  such  a  system  is  ill-devised  and  incomplete.  In 
many  cases,  as  in  our  own  tongue,  the  written  lan- 
guage fairly  bristles  with  innumerable  inaccuracies 
and  inconsistencies  and  with  flagrant  absurdities  of 
orthography.  Of  course  the  written  language  is  only 
an  imperfect  attempt  to  represent  graphically  the 
spoken  speech  and  is  a  mere  shadow  of  the  real  sub- 
stance, of  the  living  tongue.  No  system  of  symbols 
has  been  adopted  which  represent  with  absolute  ac- 
curacy and  adequacy  a  spoken  language  at  all  periods 
of  its  history,  (it  is  a  matter  of  extreme  doubt 
whether  any  living  language  is  now,  or  ever  has 
been,  represented  by  its  alphabet  with  absolute  ac- 
curacy and  precision."}  It  is  quite  probable  that  no 
living  European  tongue  is  today  represented  by  its 
alphabet  with  more  than  approximate  accuracy  and 
completeness.  As  for  the  dead  languages,  like  the 
classics,  we  may  be  reasonably  certain  that  neither 
the  Greek  nor  the  Latin  alphabet  correctly  and  ade- 
quately represented  those  respective  languages  at  all 
periods  of  their  history.  The  body  of  Latin  litera- 


at 

ture  now  extant  is  but  a  desiccated,  lifeless  mummy 
of  the  living,  pulsating  speech  which  was  heard 
upon  the  lips  of  the  ancient  Romans.  Of  that  robust 
and  vigorous  Latin  vernacular,  as  employed  by 
Cicero  and  Virgil  in  all  its  purity,  we  have  only 
embalmed  specimens,  preserved  to  us  in  the  stirring 
rhetorical  periods  of  that  prince  of  Roman  orators 
and  in  the  stately  rhythmical  hexameters  of  that 
famous  Mantuan  bard.  Quantum  mutatum  db  illo 
— how  unlike  the  spoken  language,  how  unlike  the 
burning  eloquence  which  used  to  thrill  the  populace 
in  the  ancient  Roman  Foruin !  (  Small  wonder  we  are 
accustomed  now  to  speak  of  the  tongue  of  the  ancient 
Roman  and  of  the  tongue  of  the  ancient  Hellene  as  a 
"dead  language,"  for  those  noble  tongues  perished, 
truly,  centuries  ago,  when  they  ceased  to  be  spoken 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Rome  and  Athens  respectively.] 
However,  the  classics  are  not  the  only  "dead  lan- 
guages." There  is  a  sense  in  which  some  of  the 
modern  languages  may  be  said  to  be  "dead."  Even 
our  own  Saxon  tongue,  which  good  King  Alfred 
employed  in  all  its  pristine  purity  both  in  conversa- 
tion and  in  the  translations  which  he  made  for  his 
people,  is  practically  as  "dead"  as  Latin  or  Greek, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  us  to  think 
in  terms  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  or  to  speak  with  the 
accents  and  sounds  of  that  rugged,  unpolished  idiom. 
Indeed,  the  speech  of  Chaucer  and  even  of  Shake- 
speare, no  less  than  that  of  King  Alfred,  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  "dead"  tongue  to  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking people  of  the  twentieth  century,  for  we 
no  longer  employ  the  idiom  and  the  sound  values 


in  SDut  <£ngH0!) 


then  current.  We  have  the  language  of  those  times, 
it  is  true,  preserved  in  the  works  of  Chaucer  and  in 
our  rich  literary  heritage  from  the  Elizabethan  age, 
but  the  speech  of  those  times — the  vernacular 
spoken  by  the  mellifluous-tongued  and  myriad- 
minded  Shakespeare,  no  less  than  that  employed  by 
that  "verray  perfight  gentil  knight,"  Chaucer — is  no 
longer  heard  upon  the  lips  of  the  users  of  English 
and  may  therefore  be  said  to  be  "dead."  These  au- 
thors have  left  us  a  photograph  more  or  less  faithful 
and  true,  though  not  a  speaking  likeness,  of  the 
English  language  then  existent.  How  our  English 
vernacular  has  changed  ever  since  the  days  of  the 
famous  virgin  queen,  not  to  mention  the  more  radi- 
cal changes  of  the  far-remote  days  of  the  ill-starred 
Richard  II !  A  spoken  language  is  constantly 
changing.  It  grows  and  develops,  or  languishes  and 
decays,  upon  the  lips  of  those  who  employ  it  as  their 
mother-tongue,  now  incorporating  into  itself  new 
expressions  and  idioms  and  now  casting  off  such  as 
are  old  and  worn  out.  But  it  is  no  easy  matter  to 
fix  its  ever-shifting,  kaleidoscopic  form,  or  to  de- 
termine its  chameleon  color.  The  spoken  language 
is  modified  by  each  speaker  who  uses  it  as  a  medium 
for  the  communication  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings. 
The  words  which  a  man  employs  to  convey  his 
thoughts  to  his  fellow  man  have  not  an  absolute  and 
unvarying  significance.  They  have  only  a  relative 
meaning,  not  a  rigid  and  definite  signification,  which 
is  essential  in  the  nature  of  the  term,  and  they  ex- 
press only  the  ideas  which  the  writer  or  speaker  puts 
into  them.  The  same  word,  as  is  well  known,  has 


duration*  at  Issue 


entirely  different  meanings  in  different  passages  or 
is  employed  in  different  senses  by  the  speaker. 
Hence  a  prolific  source  of  ambiguity  in  language.  In 
the  last  analysis  words  are  only  conventional  signs 
which  mean  whatever  the  speaker  and  hearer  agree 
to  make  them  mean.  Striking  illustration  of  this 
fact  is  furnished  by  our  current  social  phrases,  as 
Professor  Kittredge  points  out  in  his  "Words  and 
their  Ways  in  English  Speech."*  Such  conventional 
phrases  as  "Not  at  home,"  "Delighted  to  see  you," 
"Sorry  to  have  missed  you  when  you  called"  are 
familiar  everyday  expressions  which  have  no  essen- 
tial fixed  meaning.  To  be  sure,  they  mean  what 
their  face  value  imports,  but  they  are  generally  re- 
garded as  merely  polite  forms — etiquette — nothing 
more. 

Furthermore,  the  sounds  which  constitute  words 
have  to  be  learned  by  the  tedious  process  of  imita- 
tion, and  in  this  very  process  the  sounds  are  modi- 
fied to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  In  childhood — in 
fact,  in  infancy — we  begin  the  slow  and  painful 
process  of  acquiring  a  vocabulary  to  express  our 
ideas  and  we  continue  the  work  till  death,  ever  imi- 
tating more  or  less  closely  the  habits  of  speech  of 
those  about  us.  Thus  language  is  modified  perhaps 
without  conscious  effort,  upon  our  part.  By  care- 
ful speakers  the  purity  and  the  propriety  of  our 
speech  are  safeguarded.  On  the  other  hand,  our 
language  is  corrupted  and  debased  by  those  of  care- 
less and  slipshod  habits  of  utterance.  In  any  case, 

*See  p.  219. 


in  2Dtir 


however,  whether  upon  the  lips  of  the  cultured  and 
refined  or  upon  the  lips  of  the  untutored  and  igno- 
rant, the  language  is  constantly  undergoing  modifi- 
cations for  better  or  for  worse.  /  Since  it  is  true  that 
a  spoken  language  is  ever  changing  and  never  re- 
mains fixed,  how  great  and  far-reaching  must  be  the 
modification  and  change  which  our  own  English 
speech  has  undergone  during  the  many  generations 
of  its  history!  Because  our  written  language  has 
experienced  comparatively  little  alteration  since  the 
invention  of  printing,  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
spoken  speech  has  remained  constant  and  unchanged 
from  century  to  century.  Indeed,  nothing  is  farther 
from  the  truth.  But  even  our  written  language  has 
been  subjected  to  some  minor  alteration  and  slight 
modification  since  the  days  of  Caxton,  reputed  the 
first  English  printer.  Spoken  English,  which  is  the 
real,  living  language,  has  undergone  infinite  change 
during  the  last  five  centuries,  and  has  diverged  more 
and  more  from  the  idiom  of  Chaucer  and  Caxton,  so 
that  it  is  today  almost  an  entirely  different  tongue. 
(English  orthography  never  has  kept  pace  with  the 
^written  language.  Before  the  invention  of  printing 
our  spelling  failed  to  reflect  the  modifications  which 
took  place  in  the  pronunciation  of  our  tongue  and 
the  printing  press  served  to  establish  and  stereo- 
type the  conventional  spelling  then  in  vogue,  which 
the  characteristic  conservatism  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  has  ever  since  preserved  in  its  crystallized,  fos- 
silized form. 

The  printing  press,  therefore,  is  largely  responsi- 
ble for  our  inconsistent,  archaic  and  unphonetic  Eng- 


at 


lish  orthography.  When  printing  was  introduced 
into  England,  such  bewildering  confusion  and  sig- 
nal want  of  uniformity  prevailed  in  writing  and 
speaking  the  vernacular  that  expediency  and  busi- 
ness exigencies  alike  suggested  a  modification  of  our 
received  spelling,  and  soon  an  imperative  demand  for 
simplicity  and  uniformity  was  felt  among  the  print- 
ers. In  response  to  this  demand,  and  in  order  to 
facilitate  the  labor  of  the  compositor  and  reader,  a 
conventional  mode  of  spelling  was  adopted  and  put 
into  general  use  by  the  printers.  .Thus  English  or- 
thography was  taken  from  the  direct  control  of  the 
intellectual  class  who  wrote  books,  and  was  turned 
over  to  a  mechanical  class  who  simply  printed  books. 
The  intellectual  class  strove  to  make  the  spelling  of 
our  tongue  conform  to  the  pronunciation,  t  With  this 
object  always  in  view  English  orthography  was  per- 
mitted a  wide  variation.  A  writer,  therefore,  en- 
joyed considerable  latitude  and  freedom  of  choice 
and  was  untrammeled  by  the  binding  authority  of 
tradition  or  convention.  The  mechanical  class  who 
undertook  to  establish  our  spelling  for  us  at  the  same 
time  that  they  printed  our  manuscripts  experienced 
serious  difficulty  in  their  effort  to  represent  an  ever- 
varying  orthography.  Above  all  things  they  aimed 
to  reduce  English  orthography  to  some  uniform  nota- 
tion, and  at  length  they  achieved  their  purpose.  Thus 
uniformity  in  our  spelling  was  secured,  but  at  the 
sacrifice  of  accuracy  and  precision;  for  the  conven- 
tional orthography  adopted  by  the  early  printers  in 
England  was  by  no  means  scientific  or  accurate  even 
at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  and  rjo  attempt  was  made 


in  2Dur 


later  to  make  the  received  orthography  adequately 
reproduce  the  pronunciation.  Consequently  there 
arose  a  wide  divergence  between  written  and  spoken 
English.  Not  the  least  important  result  is  the  loss 
of  knowledge  we  have  sustained  as  to  how  suc- 
cessive past  generations  of  Englishmen  spoke  the 
vernacular.  The  result,  which  is  obvious  to  every- 
one and  frequently  an  embarrassment  to  some,  is  the  *;• 
innumerable  obstacles  which  our  archaic  and  incon-  \ 
sistent  orthography  necessarily  places  in  the  way  of 
those  of  the  present  generation  who  have  to  learn 
English. 

Sometimes,  indulging  in  a  little  persiflage,  we 
point  with  pardonable  pride  to  the  great  achieve- 
ments of  our  race  and  descant  upon  the  marvelous 
beauty  and  flexibility  of  our  noble  English  speech. 
We  glory  in  the  fact  that  awe  speak  the  tongue  that 
Shakespeare  spoke,"  although  we  may  not  hold  the 
faith  and  morals  which  Milton  held.  We  look  with 
leniency  upon  such  an  oratorical  or  poetic  utter- 
ance as  a  harmless  effusion  of  patriotic  sentiment. 
Yet  how  few  really  are  those  who  today  know  the 
tongue  that  Shakespeare  spoke!  Because  we  speak 
the  vernacular  we  take  it  for  granted,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  that  we  speak  the  language  and  employ  the 
idiom  of  Shakespeare,  little  reflecting  how  different 
our  present-day  English  sounds  from  Elizabethan 
English.  Very  few  persons,  indeed,  have  an  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  Shakespearean  English.  Our 
speech  has  taken  a  long  step  in  advance  since  the 
halcyon  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  it  is  a  far  cry 
from  the  twentieth  century  to  the  sixteenth  century 


OFTHC 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


s  €Ute0tion0  at  300ue 

English.  Perhaps  it  is  not  wide  of  the  mark  to 
affirm  that  not  one  person  in  a  thousand  of  those 
using  English  as  their  mother  tongue  could  today 
understand  a  play  of  Shakespeare  if  read  with  the 
author's  own  accent  and  pronunciation.  Spoken 
with  the  original  sound  values,  in  accordance  with 
authorized  usage  at  the  time  of  its  production,  the 
play  of  Hamlet  would  seem  to  us  today  a  foreign 
tongue.  With  the  words  of  Shakespeare's  plays  ac- 
cording to  our  present  fashion  of  pronunciation  we 
are  quite  familiar,  but  we  know  no  more  how  the 
master  dramatist  would  have  uttered  them,  as  Ellis 
observes  in  his  "Early  English  Pronunciation,"* 
than  we  know  how  to  write  a  play  in  his  idiom.  The 
speech  of  Shakespeare  has  long  since  departed  from 
us;  and  if  acquired  today,  it  must  be  acquired  as  a 
new  tongue  at  the  cost  of  untold  study  and  unstinted 
toil.  It  would  be  necessary  to  delve  into  Elizabethan 
antiquities  and  consult  contemporary  authorities  on 
English  pronunciation  in  order  to  determine  the  ac- 
cepted values  of  English  sounds  then  in  use  and  re- 
produce the  vernacular  of  that  remote  age.  This 
would  involve  a  vast  deal  of  patient  labor  and  gen- 
erous study,  and  even  at  this  costly  price  we  could 
only  hope  to  ascertain  Shakespeare's  speech  with 
approximate  accuracy  of  detail.  So  far  has  our 
spoken  English  today  left  behind  the  written  Eng- 
lish of  the  Elizabethan  age. 

Were  it  a  physical  possibility,  it  would  be  equally 
instructive    and    interesting    to    hear    our    English 

*VoL  I,  p.  22. 


in  fiDur  <£ngU0f) 


tongue  uttered  with  the  characteristic  accents  and 
sounds  of  each  successive  period  of  its  history  from 
the  age  of  King  Alfred  to  the  Victorian  era.  What 
a  vast  and  striking  difference  there  must  be  regis- 
tered between  the  received  pronunciations  of  these 
several  periods,  embracing  a  lapse  of  time  of  well- 
nigh  ten  centuries !  How  they  gradually  shade  into 
each  other  as  the  colors  of  the  prism!  History 
records  a  wide  divergence  of  the  speech  of  King  Ed- 
ward VII  from  that  of  King  Alfred,  and  yet  both 
of  these  are  but  extremes  of  the  same  English  lan- 
guage which  has  enjoyed  an  unbroken  continuity  of 
development  through  so  many  centuries.  How  dif- 
ferent our  language  must  have  sounded  upon  the 
lips  of  the  leading  English  men  of  letters  from  Chau- 
cer, Wickliffe,  Langland,  and  Spenser,  on  down  to 
Dryden,  Milton,  Pope,  and  Addison!  When  we 
speak  of  the  English  speech  of  a  given  period  in  the 
past,  we  naturally  think  of  the  pronunciation  as  be- 
ing uniform  all  over  England.  We  assume  without 
sufficient  warrant  that  there  was  a  standard  of  pro- 
nunciation that  prevailed  throughout  England  in 
those  remote  times,  just  as  there  is  a  recognized 
standard,  with  but  slight  variation,  that  prevails  in 
England  and  America  at  the  present  day.  How- 
ever, even  today  there  is  no  absolute  standard  of 
pronunciation.  An  absolute,  definite  English  or- 
thoepy does  not  exist  in  reality ;  it  is  only  a  phantom, 
a  figment  of  a  precisian  imagination  without  a 
counterpart  in  nature.  We  use  the  phrase  for  con- 
venience, to  be  sure,  but  there  never  has  been  any 
such  thing  as  an  absolute  standard  of  pronunciation 


io  Xtie0ton0  at 

in  English,  and  is  not  now.  The  nearest  approach  to 
it  is  a  linguistc  ideal  to  which  the  users  of  our  Eng- 
lish speech  aim,  with  more  or  less  conscious  effort,  to 
make  their  pronunciation  conform. 

Still,  the  educated  pronunciation  of  England  and 
America  comes  much  nearer  to  a  common  standard 
today  than  was  ever  the  case  before  in  the  history  of 
the  English  language.  In  Elizabethan  times  the 
usage  of  London  and  the  Court  did  not  prevail 
throughout  the  various  shires  of  England,  where  the 
pronunciation  was  somewhat  provincial.  The  tend- 
ency of  English  pronunciation  in  modern  times  has 
been  toward  uniformity.  But  in  the  thirteenth, 
fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries  it  is  almost  a 
straining  of  the  meaning  of  words,  as  Ellis  truly 
remarks,  to  talk  of  a  general  English  pronunciation. 
In  those  good  old  days  there  was  no  received  stand- 
ard of  pronunciation  in  England,  and  every  man  was 
free  to  speak  English  according  to  his  own  sense  of 
propriety.  Indeed,  prior  to  the  age  of  Chaucer  not 
only  was  there  no  standard  of  pronunciation,  but 
there  was  no  acknowledged  standard  of  literary  Eng- 
lish. There  were  various  provincial  dialects  and 
also  a  Court  dialect,  but  none  of  these  was  of  suffi- 
cient influence  to  triumph  over  the  rest  and  to  com- 
pel universal  imitation  and  adoption.  After  the 
Elizabethan  age  local  usage  in  the  matter  of  Eng- 
lish pronunciation  declined  steadily,  and  the  stand- 
ard of  the  metropolis  gradually  commended  itself, 
with  increasing  influence,  till  it  spread  more  or  less 
completely  over  the  entire  country.  Consequently  at 
the  time  of  the  rise  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary, 


In  Dur  OBngIi06  ©peecf)  n 

in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  great  middle 
class  had  begun  to  attain  to  prominence,  provincial 
pronunciation  fell  into  disrepute,  and  people  every- 
where clamored  for  a  guide  to  Court  usage  in  the 
matter  of  English  orthoepy.  From  that  time  to  the 
present  there  has  been  a  close  approach  to  uniformity 
of  utterance  in  our  English  speech.  But  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  there  cannot,  of  course,  be  a  stand- 
ard pronunciation  without  absolute  uniformity  of 
utterance,  and  it  need  hardly  be  remarked  that  this 
does  not  exist.  Nevertheless,  the  influence  and 
dominance  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary  are  clearly 
in  the  direction  of  a  standard  pronunciation  and 
have  made  possible  the  existing  approach  to  that  end. 
It  is  quite  remarkable  how  potent  the  influence  of  the 
pronouncing  dictionary  is  upon  English  pronuncia- 
tion.* Despite  the  fact  that  such  an  orthoepic  au- 
thority is  at  best  arbitrary,  and  somewhat  artificial, 
it  has  enjoyed  a  kind  of  undisputed  supremacy  since 
the  days  of  Dr.  Johnson,  the  literary  autocrat  of  the 
eighteenth  century;  and  its  tyranny  seems  not  yet 
ended.  For  the  English-speaking  world  still  defers 
to  the  authority  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary  and 
to  that  extent  is  under  its  thrall  and  has  not  the 
courage  to  challenge  it  and  to  assert  its  own  inde- 
pendence in  matters  of  orthoepy. 

Prior  to  the  eighteenth  century  the  pronouncing 
dictionary  was  unknown.  It  therefore  cannot  boast 
the  authority  of  a  long  antiquity.  There  were,  how- 
ever, certain  guides  to  correct  orthoepy  even  in  those 

*See  Authority  in  English  Pronunciation. 


jCtiiestfotts  at  3$0ue 


early  times,  at  least  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  There  are  preserved  to  us  certain  records 
of  contemporary  orthoepists  which  throw  light  upon 
English  pronunciation  in  those  remote  times.  We 
are  not  therefore  left  to  conjecture  simply  in  this 
matter.  These  authorities,  to  be  sure,  leave  much 
to  be  desired  in  any  disputed  question  of  our  early 
pronunciation.  Their  descriptions  of  the  accepted 
orthoepy  of  their  respective  centuries  as  well  as  their 
graphic  representations  of  the  English  sounds  are 
far  from  lucid,  and  they  sometimes  make  confusion 
worse  confounded.  Some  of  the  orthoepists  were 
content  to  refer  to  Latin,  Greek,  or  Hebrew  sounds 
as  a  standard  of  comparison  for  English  pronuncia- 
tion, sublimely  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  the  older 
pronunciation  of  these  languages  is  not  yet  estab- 
lished to  the  satisfaction  of  all  scholars  and  that  the 
modern  pronunciation  varies  with  different  coun- 
tries. Others  of  them  used  key  words  the  value  of 
which  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  determine  definitely. 
Others  again  refer  to  such  unstable  standards  of 
comparison  as  contemporary  French  and  Italian. 
Yet,  amid  the  endless  confusion  and  apparent  con- 
flict of  these  incomplete  records,  that  eminent  au- 
thority on  our  English  speech  succeeded,  by  dint  of 
his  laborious  erudition  and  untiring  patience,  in 
solving  the  numberless  difficulties  with  which  the 
question  of  our  early  pronunciation  was  beset.  By 
this  achievement  Mr.  Ellis  placed  the  world  of 
scholars  under  lasting  obligation  by  determining  for 
us,  with  approximate  accuracy,  the  successive  values 
of  our  early  English  sounds  down  to  the  age  of  the 


in  S)ur  (English  Speecft  13 

pronouncing  dictionary.  Let  Mr.  Ellis  give  us  in  his 
own  words  a  summary  of  his  arduous  investigation. 
"The  pronunciation  of  English  during  the  sixteenth 
century/'  says  he,  "was  thus  rendered  tolerably  clear, 
and  the  mode  in  which  it  broke  into  that  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  became  traceable.  But  the  seven- 
teenth century  was,  like  the  fifteenth,  one  of  civil 
war,  that  is  of  extraordinary  commingling  of  the 
population,  and  consequently  one  of  marked  linguis- 
tic change.  Between  the  fourteenth  and  the  six- 
teenth centuries  our  language  was  almost  born  anew. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  the  idiomatic  changes  are 
by  no  means  so  evident,  but  the  pronunciation  altered 
distinctly  in  some  remarkable  points.  These  facts, 
and  the  breaking  up  of  the  seventeenth  into  the 
eighteenth  century  pronunciation,  which  when  estab- 
lished scarcely  differed  from  the  present,  are  well 
brought  to  light  by  Wallis,  Wilkins,  Owen,  Price, 
Cooper,  Miege,  and  Jones,  followed  by  Buchanan, 
Franklin,  and  Sheridan.  It  became,  therefore,  pos- 
sible to  assign  with  considerable  accuracy  the  pro- 
nunciation of  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Dryden, 
and  Pope,  or  rather  of  their  contemporaries."* 

In  the  English  language  there  is  manifest  a  tend- 
ency for  the  pronunciation  to  conform  to  the  orthog- 
raphy. Our  pronunciation  seems  to  be  more  a  mat- 
ter of  the  eye  than  of  the  ear.  By  this  is  meant  that 
the  spelling  of  an  English  word  exerts  an  appreciable 
influence  upon  its  pronunciation.  We  feel,  some- 
how, instinctively  that  the  spelling  ought  to  be  an 

*Early  English  Pronunciation,  I,  p.  26. 


14  dilution*  at  300ue 

index,  perhaps  a  reasonably  trustworthy  guide  to  the 
pronunciation  of  a  word.  It  seems  not  in  keeping 
with  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  certainly  contrary 
to  our  linguistic  instinct  and  opposed  to  the  genius 
of  our  English  speech,  for  pronunciation  to  be  en- 
tirely dissociated  from  orthography.  We  feel  that 
the  sound  should  be  forever  and  inseparably  wedded 
to  the  writing,  and  our  linguistic  sense  is  more  or 
less  shocked  when  the  two  are  divorced.  Especially 
is  this  sentiment  prevalent  in  America.  What  else 
could  have  prompted  the  slight  modification  in  the 
writing  of  such  words  as  favor,  honor,  neighbor* 
etc.,  where  American  usage  has  seen  fit  to  make  a 
departure  from  the  time-honored  British  usage  in 
discarding  the  silent  letter?  Of  course,  as  far  as 
orthography  is  concerned,  there  is  very  little  differ- 
ence between  American  and  British  usage.  In  Amer- 
ica we  aim  to  pronounce  more  nearly  as  we  spell. 
Yet  even  in  American  English  the  pronunciation  is 
occasionally  divorced  from  the  spelling,  particularly 
in  proper  names,  but  in  British  English  this  feature 
is  still  more  noticeable,  and,  no  doubt,  American 
usage  in  this  particular  is  simply  to  be  regarded  *q 
a  concession  to  British  authority  and  custom.  OFor 
there  appears  to  be  no  general  principle  governing 
the  pronunciation  of  proper  names,  the  same  name 
being  sometimes  differently  pronounced  in  different 
localities.  Besides,  many  of  our  proper  names  are 
direct  importations  from  the  mother  country  and 

*See  A  Question  of  Preference  in  English  Spelling. 
|See  Briticisms  vs.  Americanisms. 


in  2Dur  (English  ^peccfn  15 

therefore  have  naturally  retained  their  imported 
pronunciations.  In  British  usage  the  pronunciation 
and  spelling  are  not  infrequently  at  glaring  variance, 
as  in  Pall  Mall  and  Cholmondeley,  which  may  serve 
as  a  type  of  this  class  of  proper  names.  We  might 
offer  Taliaferro  as  an  American  Roland  for  the  Brit- 
ish Oliver.  But  where  should  we  find  a  parallel  in 
American  English  to  the  characteristic  British  cleric 
and  military,  to  cite  only  two  examples  of  a  class  of 
words  of  which  the  distinctive  usage  of  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  is  at  variance  ? 

Perhaps  the  true  explanation  of  this  variation  be- 
tween British  and  American  usage  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  America  is  a  new  country,  and  hence  tra- 
dition here  does  not  carry  such  binding  authority  as 
in  the  Old  World.  There  the  pronunciation  has  been 
handed  down  by  word  of  mouth,  from  generation  to 
generation,  among  a  people  "to  the  manner  born." 
Here  conditions  are  much  altered.  America  has  a 
large  foreign-born  element,  and  consequently  many 
of  the  people  cannot  claim  English  as  their  native 
tongue  and  are  compelled  to  learn  it  as  a  foreign 
language.  Hence  they  rely,  in  a  measure,  upon  the 
spelling  to  indicate  the  pronunciation  of  English, 
making  it  a  study  for  the  eye  quite  as  much  as  for 
the  ear.  If  in  democratic  America  the  habits  of 
speech  were  as  thoroughly  established  as  they  are  in 
aristocratic  England  then  we  should  speak  the  Eng- 
lish language  without  any  reference  to  its  orthogra- 
phy. But  political  conditions  have  modified  our 
American  English  somewhat,  causing  it  to  vary 
slightly  from  British  usage.  A  rise  in  social  rank, 


16  €Hte0tion0  at  30sue 

which  is  quite  common  in  the  New  World  though 
rare  in  the  Old,  is  frequently  marked  by  a  revision  of 
one's  former  mode  of  utterance,  especially  if  your 
self-made  man  happens  to  have  come  of  an  obscure 
and  unlettered  family. 

Assuredly  English  orthography  is  no  criterion  of 
received  pronunciation,  either  in  America  or  in  Eng- 
land. It  requires  only  a  moment's  reflection  to  be 
convinced  how  misleading  and  deceptive  is  our  or- 
thography as  a  guide  to  orthoepy.  Foreigners  who 
undertake  to  learn  our  tongue  are  naturally  more 
forcibly  impressed  with  the  utter  untrustworthiness 
of  this  guide.  The  status  of  our  orthography  has 
been  correctly  described  by  a  prominent  historian  of 
our  noble  speech.  He  says,  "English  is  now  the  most 
barbarously  spelled  of  any  cultivated  tongue  in 
Christendom.  We  are  weltering  in  an  orthographic 
chaos  in  which  a  multitude  of  signs  are  represented 
by  the  same  sound  and  a  multitude  of  sounds  by  the 
same  sign."*  There  is  no  doubt  that  our  spelling  is 
exceedingly  unphonetic  and  unscientific.  In  our 
?  alphabet  are  only  twenty-six  characters  to  represent 
the  multiplicity  of  sounds  which  exist  in  the  English 
language.  The  utter  inadequacy  of  our  imperfect 
alphabet  makes  its  strongest  appeal — albeit  mute — in 
its  vowel  notation.  Here  the  many  distinct  vocalic 
sounds  with  their  gradations  in  which  English 
abounds  must  all  be  represented  by  five  symbols. 
Add  to  this  that  we  employ  the  same  orthographic 

*Professor  T.  R.  Lounsbury,  History  of  the  English  Language, 
p.  267. 


in  fl)tir  4EnsH0f)  ^peecft  17 

device  to  indicate  quantity.  The  one  vowel  symbol 
a,  for  example,  is  written  to  indicate  the  various 
divergent  sounds  heard  in  the  words  father,  fate,  fat, 
fall,  ask,  and  fare.  Likewise  the  single  letter  o  is 
employed  to  represent  the  diverse  gradations  of  that 
sound  which  we  utter  in  the  words  floor,  room,  frog, 
off,  note,  and  not.  Again  we  use  diagraphs,  such  as 
ea,  ee,  oa,  ei,  ie,  etc.,  to  represent  a  single  vowel 
sound  and  diphthongs  as  well.  As  has  been  pointed 
out  by  Professor  Lounsbury,  one  and  the  same  scfund 
is  now  represented  by  e  in  let,  by  ea  in  head,  by  ei  in 
heifer,  by  eo  in  leopard,  by  ay  in  says,  by  ai  in  said, 
and  by  a  in  many. 

Furthermore,  as  a  result  of  the  change  in  the  val- 
ues of  English  vowel  sounds,  our  vowel  notation  is  no 
longer  accurate.  We  use  the  character  a  to  indicate 
to  the  eye  the  vowel  quality  in  mate,  sate,  rate,  date, 
etc.,  where  the  sound  value,  far  from  being  of  an  a 
quality,  is  really  a  long  phonetic  e.  The  truth  is,  all 
the  English  vowels  have  undergone  a  radical  altera- 
tion from  their  primitive  values  which  they  had  in 
the  early  history  of  our  speech,  having  passed 
through  different  stages  in  the  successive  periods.  It 
is  an  interesting  chapter  in  English  phonology  to 
trace  the  tortuous  course  of  a  given  sound,  say  a, 
through  its  various  mutations  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period  down  to  the  present  time.  Our  vowels,  espe- 
cially, have  changed  and  interchanged  to  an  extent 
which  is  simply  astonishing.  The  average  scholar 
who  has  not  made  a  special  study  of  our  English 
language  has  absolutely  no  conception  of  the  radical 
nature  and  vast  extent  of  the  change  and  develop- 


1 8  £ttiegtfott8  at 

ment  of  English  sounds.  Take  as  an  illustration 
our  vowel  e.  The  early  English  phonetic  e  passed 
through  several  stages  of  development  and  about  the 
seventeenth  century  came  to  have  the  value  of  a 
genuine  long  i,  as  in  ear,  hear,  year,  etc.  Later,  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  this  same  sound  developed, 
into  a  diphthong  which  is  its  present  phonetic  value. 
Of  course  we  speak  now  of  the  sound  of  this  vowel, 
not  of  the  symbol  which  we  employ  to  represent  it  to 
the  eye  in  writing.  That  is  another  story,  and  it 
illustrates  the  bungling  work  of  our  early  English 
printers.  In  early  times  there  were  several  charac- 
ters in  use  to  represent  the  vowel,  e,  to  wit,  e,  ee,  eo, 
ea,  and  ae.  After  the  printing  press  was  set  up  in 
England,  for  convenience  and  simplicity,  eo  and  ae 
were  not  much  employed.  But  e,  ee,  and  ea  came 
into  general  favor,  and  were  established  by  custom  to 
indicate  the  vowel  e  to  the  eye.  However,  these  sym- 
bols were  not  consistently  used  in  the  beginning  by 
the  printers,  and  hence  the  present  confusion  in  writ- 
ing. Our  consonantal  notation  shows  evidence  of  as 
flagrant  abuse  of  symbols  and  of  glaring  inaccuracy. 
Numerous  examples  might  be  cited  to  prove  that 
errors  on  the  part  of  our  early  scribes  and  printers 
have  been  stereotyped  in  our  orthography  and  per- 
petuated to  the  present  day. 

But  not  all  the  inconsistencies  in  our  spelling  have 
sprung  from  the  careless  work  of  the  early  printers. 
Some  are  the  result  of  our  etymological  spelling. 
For  instance,  the  sound  of  s  in  sure  we  represent  by 
the  symbol  ti  in  motion,  by  sci  in  conscience,  by  ci 
in  suspicion,  by  xi  in  anxious,  by  ce  in  ocean,  and  by 


fit  Dur  Cngli0!)  @peecf)  19 

sh  in  shepherd.     It  is  obviously  not  fair  to  charge 
such  an  inconsistency  as  this  to  the  sins  of  our  erring 
early  printers.     Still,  the  early  English  printers  have 
enough  to  answer  for  in  corrupting  the  orthography 
of  our  language.     They  were  grossly  careless  and 
indifferent,   and  showed  but  slight  regard  for  the 
propriety  of  English  orthography.     We  are  not  at 
all  surprised  to  learn,  in  view  of  the  gross  errors 
they  committed,  that  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
foreigners — Germans  and  Dutchmen — who  did  not 
use  English  as  their  vernacular  and  who  did  not,  for 
that  reason,   know  the  language   thoroughly.      "As 
foreigners/'  comments  Professor  Lounsbury,  "they 
had  little  or  no  knowledge  of  the  proper  spelling  of 
our  tongue" ;  and  he  adds  that  "in  the  general  license 
that  then  prevailed  they  could  venture  to  disregard 
where  they  did  not  care  to  understand."    The  result 
was  the  printing  press  brought  chaos  into  English 
orthography  in  the  multitude  of  books  which  it  sent 
broadcast  over  the  land.     Some  of  the  errors,  it  is 
true,  were  corrected  subsequently,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  an  effort  was  made 
to  reform  English  orthography  and  adjust  it  anew  to 
the  pronunciation.     But  many  of  the  incorrect  spell- 
ings which  had  meanwhile  crept  in  through  the  in- 
troduction  of  printing  were   too   thoroughly  estab- 
lished by  usage  to  be  eradicated.    They  continue  still 
in  English  orthography  as  a  lasting  monument  alike 
to  the  crass  ignorance  and  negligence  of  our  early 
printers  and  to  the  arrant  pedantry  of  our  early 
proof  readers.     Thus  our  English  orthography  now 
in  its  crystallized  state  preserves  those  glaring  de- 


/ 


20  duesticms  at  Jawue 

fects  as  the  amber  the  insects  which,  entangled  in 
the  liquid,  are  encased  for  ever. 

It  must  not  be  inferred,  however,  that  as  soon  as 
Caxton  set  up  his  press,  English  spelling  was  imme- 
diately stereotyped  and  fixed  for  all  time.  It  re- 
quired fully  two,  if  not  three,  centuries,  according  to 
Ellis,  for  the  picturesque  diversity  and  latitude  per- 
mitted the  early  scribes  to  be  reduced  to  the  dull, 
rigid  uniformity  now  established  by  convention. 
Experiment  after  experiment  was  made  by  the 
typographers  whose  constant  and  ultimate  aim  was 
simplicity.  The  last  radical  change  was  effected  by 
the  seventeenth  century  when  the  spellings  ee,  oof 
and  oa  were  adopted  by  the  printers.  Even  then  a 
fierce  struggle  in  orthography  was  waged,  as,  for 
example,  that  between  sope  and  soap,  until  the  con- 
ventional spelling  at  last  triumphed.  In  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  writing  ie  for  long  e  as  in  brief f 
believe,  friend,  chief,  and  the  like,  was  finally  estab- 
lished after  a  long  and  doubtful  contest.  In  early 
times  the  spelling  vacillated  between  frend  and 
freend,  chef,  cheef,  and  chefe;  and  a  scribe  could 
take  his  choice.  But  of  course  the  printing  press 
sounded  the  knell  of  this  orthographic  liberty  of  the 
individual,  and  one  must  spell  now  according  to  con- 
vention. And  if  one  does  not  know  what  this  is,  he 
must  consult  the  dictionary. 

The  seventeenth  century  witnessed  many  impor- 
tant, yea,  revolutionary,  changes  in  our  speech  as  a 
result  of  the  social  upheaval  incident  to  the  civil  war. 
But  there  was  very  slight  recognition  of  these  in  the 
contemporary  orthography.  The  printers  refused  to 


in  2Dut  Cnglfei)  Speecft  21 

alter  the  conventional  orthography  to  suit  the  modifi- 
cations in  the  spoken  speech,  and  they  threw  the 
weight  of  all  their  mighty  influence  in  favor  of  the 
traditional  spelling  and  against  any  sweeping  re- 
form. They  prevailed;  and  from  that  time  down 
to  the  present  they  have  resolutely  discouraged  any 
attempt  at  extensive  revision  of  our  traditional  or- 
thography. Hence  our  historic  orthography  with  its 
teeming  inconsistencies  and  absurdities  has  now  come 
to  be  regarded  with  a  feeling  of  reverence;  and  we 
naturally  recoil  from  any  far-reaching  reform  of  it 
as  we  would  from  laying  violent  hands  upon  an  heir- 
loom which  has  passed  down  to  us  through  many 
generations.  We  have  become  accustomed  to  asso- 
ciate a  certain  spelling  with  a  certain  word,  and 
we  do  not  desire  to  have  this  association  broken  up. 
We  therefore  feel  like  registering  a  strong  and  vig- 
orous protest  against  any  proposed  reform  of  a 
sweeping  nature  which  would  disturb  our  present 
English  orthography,  however  illogical,  archaic,  and 
arbitrary. 

To  be  sure,  some  of  our  lexicographers  have  ven- 
tured to  introduce  a  revised  spelling  here  and  there. 
Dr.  Johnson  essayed  this  in  his  epoch-making  dic- 
tionary, published  about  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  Indeed,  he  foisted  not  a  few  absurd 
and  arbitrary  orthographies  into  our  language,  which 
have  contributed  to  bring  our  spelling  into  disrepute 
with  those  who  clamor  for  "fonetic  reform."  Let  us 
note  some  of  these.  Johnson  threw  the  weight  of  his 
authority  in  favor  of  comptroller  against  the  older 
controller,  although  he  gave  both  a  place  in  his  die- 


22  £Ute0tion0  at 

tionary.  He  likewise  harbored  foreign  and  sover- 
eign in  his  dictionary,  leaving  the  older  forrain  and 
sovran  to  shift  for  themselves.  He  adopted  debt 
and  doubt  with  the  epenthetic  &,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  older  and  correct  dett  and  dout.  He  lent  the 
weight  of  his  influence  to  establish  a  misleading  and 
•useless  s  in  island,  which  used  to  be  written  Hand. 
But  perhaps  he  felt  that  the  word  was  too  closely 
associated  in  the  popular  mind  with  isle  for  Hand 
to  prevail.  On  the  other  hand,  he  retained  the  old 
spelling  He,  which  we  have  discarded  for  the  ety- 
mological aisle,  adding  that  isle  was  in  his  judgment 
a  corrupt  writing  for  aile,  then  also  current.  His 
uncertainty  as  to  the  etymology  of  the  early  Eng- 
lish agast  led  him  to  write  it  also  aghast,  which  has 
since  triumphed  over  its  quondam  rival.  He  gives 
the  precedence  to  delight,  to  the  utter  defeat  of 
delite,  its  erstwhile  competitor  for  popular  favor.  He 
rejected  the  simpler  spelling  dke  for  the  less  familiar 
ache,  out  of  deference  to  its  Greek  origin,  yet  he 
endeavored  to  preserve  a  useless  k  in  almanack  and 
musick  and  similar  words.  He  made  a  distinction 
without  a  difference  in  his  spelling  of  the  final  syl- 
lables of  such  words  as  accede,  exceed,  precede,  and 
proceed.  But  it  is  idle  at  this  distant  day  to  arraign 
Dr.  Johnson  on  the  score  of  his  spelling.  Let  us 
therefore  dismiss  the  indictment  against  his  arbi- 
trary orthography.  Some  of  our  present  authorities 
on  English  spelling  are  not  entirely  free  from  re- 
proach in  this  particular.  The  truth  is,  even  yet  our 
English  dictionaries  are  not  a  unit  as  to  approved 
spelling.  We  have  not  yet  attained  to  absolute  uni- 


in 


formity  in  the  matter  of  our  orthography.  For,  ac- 
cording to  Ellis,  there  are  still  well-nigh  twenty-five 
hundred  words  in  the  English  language  the  spelling 
of  which  is  unsettled  and  indeterminate.  But  we 
experience  no  serious  inconvenience  as  a  result,  even 
if  we  have  no  preference  as  to  what  dictionary  we 
should  follow  as  a  guide.  In  fact,  any  dictionary 
gives  us  a  choice  between  worshipped  and  worshiped, 
traveller  and  traveler,  center  and  centre,  and  similar 
words,  in  the  case  of  which  usage  still  wavers  and  is 
divided  almost  equally.  Some  excellent  authorities 
still  cling  to  the  etymological  spelling  of  words  of 
classic  origin,  such  as  haemorrhage,  diarrhoea,  ceft- 
thetics,  oeconomics,  and  cestivate,  to  mention  only 
a  few  of  a  large  class  the  spelling  of  which  vacil- 
lates. Others,  again,  sanction  this  spelling,  but 
throw  the  weight  of  their  influence  on  the  side  of  the 
simpler  form.  This  simply  proves  that  there  is  some 
degree  of  variation  even  in  our  accepted  orthography. 
After  all  there  is  no  fixed  standard  of  English  orthog-  <H 
raphy,  just  as  there  is  no  absolute  standard  of  Eng- 
lish pronunciation.  And  yet  there  is  a  narrower  ! 
margin  of  variation  in  our  accepted  orthography 
than  there  is  in  our  received  pronunciation. 

The  movement  for  the  reform  of  English  spelling 
is  beginning  to  engage  the  attention  of  the  public. 
The  Simplified  Spelling  Board  has  already  entered 
upon  a  campaign  which  holds  out  some  hope  of  suc- 
cess. It  remains  to  be  seen  what  practical  results 
will  be  accomplished.  Scholars  of  acknowledged 
eminence  are  lending  the  influence  of  their  authority 
to  the  movement.  But  there  is  a  mighty  wall  of 


24  £Xue0tion0  at  300ue 

bigoted  conservatism  to  be  battered  down  before  a 
movement  so  sweeping  in  its  aim  and  scope  as  "spell- 
ing reform"  can  make  much  headway.  The  history 
of  all  similar  attempts  in  the  past  is  not  such  as  to 
hold  out  great  promise  to  the  present  reformers  or 
inspire  them  with  unbounded  confidence.  Still,  in- 
telligent, well-directed  and  untiring  effort  ought  cer- 
tainly to  be  rewarded  with  a  reasonable  degree  of 
success,  and  surely  there  can  be  no  question  that 
there  is  room  for  improvement  in  our  English  spell- 
ing. If  we  had  such  an  institution  as  the  French 
Academy,  no  doubt  the  problem  would  be  simplified. 
The  outcome  of  the  present  campaign  for  the  revision 
of  our  English  spelling  will  be  awaited  with  no  little 
interest 


in  2Dur  <£ngli0i)  Sspeedj  25 


!A  QUESTION  OF  PKEEEKENCE  IN  ENG- 
LISH SPELLING. 

We  little  think  when  we  read  or  write  that  the 
words  we  employ  are  not  precisely  the  same  as  those 
which  have  been  in  use  in  our  mother-tongue  from 
time  immemorial.  We  are  born  into  the  language, 
so  to  say,  and  the  words  of  our  vocabulary  we  regard 
as  part  and  parcel  of  our  rich  heritage  of  American 
liberty.  Yet  even  the  words  of  our  English  speech, 
like  many  of  the  institutions  and  customs  of  our 
Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  have  a  long  history  back 
of  them,  showing  traces  here  and  there  of  the  vari- 
ous stages  of  development  they  have  passed  through. 
The  words  we  use  to-day  are  not  identical  in  form 
or  meaning  with  those  employed  by  our  forebears 
of  the  generation  of  Chaucer  or  even  of  the  genera- 
tion of  Shakespeare.  The  forms  of  our  English 
words  have  undergone  considerable  change  since  that 
remote  period  in  the  development  of  our  mother- 
tongue.  English  spelling  is  far  different  from  what 
it  was  in  Alfred's,  or  Chaucer's  time. 

Before  the  invention  of  printing,  those  who  spoke 
and  wrote  the  English  language  seem  to  have  been 
at  liberty  to  spell  as  they  chose.  Their  mental  com- 
posure was  not  disturbed  by  the  annoying  suspicion 
that  their  spelling  was  not  according  to  the  norm 


26  £lue0tton0  at  300ue 

prescribed  by  the  dictionary.  In  those  good  old  days 
there  was  no  acknowledged  criterion  such  as  the 
"Century,"  or  "Webster,"  or  "Worcester";  and 
writers  had  no  final  appeal  in  the  matter  of  orthog- 
raphy as  present-day  writers  have.  Since  there  was 
no  standard  authority  on  orthography  to  which  all 
polite  society  had  to  conform,  the  authors  of  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  were  untram- 
meled  by  tradition  and  were  free  to  spell  as  they 
pleased.  Every  writer  was  a  law  unto  himself  and 
followed  the  dictates  of  his  own  orthographical  con- 
science, with  no  dictionary  to  molest  or  make  him 
afraid.  We  find  an  allusion  to  this  delightful  sense 
of  freedom  in  the  comment  which  a  well-known 
American  humorist  made  upon  Chaucer,  that  well 
of  English  undefiled  from  which  so  many  modern 
writers  have  drunk  copious  draughts  of  inspiration. 
"Chaucer,"  said  he  quaintly,  "may  have  been  a  fine 

poet,  but  he  was  a poor  speller." 

The  diffusion  of  the  art  of  printing  and  the  con- 
sequent necessity  for  a  uniform  orthography  grad- 
ually curtailed  this  liberty,  and  then  the  day  of  the 
dictionary  dawned.  The  dictionary  is  a  democratic 
invention  called  into  being  by  the  rise  of  the  great 
middle  class  of  society,  which  desired  to  become 
familiar  with  the  practises  of  polite  circles.  Lexi- 
cographers came  forward  to  supply  the  desired  in- 
formation. Authors  not  "to  the  mannor  born,"  and 
therefore  unacquainted  with  courtly  usage,  when 
moved  to  write,  felt  that  they  must  conform  to  the 
standards  set  up  by  the  lexicographers,  who  claimed 
to  give  the  received  usage,  the  jus  et  norma  scribendi. 


in  SDiit  dBttglfe!)  Speed)  27 

Before  the  epoch  of  dictionaries  it  appears  not  to 
have  made  the  slightest  difference  whether  a  writer 
spelled  the  word  recede,  for  example,  according  to 
the  present  accepted  orthography,  or  whether  he 
spelled  it  receed,  receede,  recede  or  recead,  all  of 
which  forms  are  found  in  manuscripts  of  a  few  cen- 
turies ago.  Some  of  these  orthographic  variations 
lingered  into  the  eighteenth  century,  though  English 
spelling  had  probably  become  stereotyped  at  least  a 
century  before  this  date.  Yet  the  establishment  of 
the  spelling  was  naturally  a  gradual  process,  and 
some  words  vacillated  a  long  time  and  never  really 
became  fixed.  Of  this  more  anon.  Proper  names 
showed  considerable  latitude  of  spelling.  Men  of 
the  eminence  of  Spenser,  rare  Ben  Jonson  and 
Shakespeare,  for  example,  are  said  to  have  had  no 
fixed  practise  of  spelling  their  names,  but  wrote 
them  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

The  lack  of  a  standard  authority  of  orthography 
necessarily  gave  rise  to  much  confusion  and  disor- 
der in  English  spelling.  This  confusion  is  reflected 
even  yet  in  the  present  chaotic  and  unphonetic  spell- 
ing of  our  language.  Few  tongues  are  more  un- 
phonetic than  the  English.  This  fact  is  recognized 
and  efforts  have  been  made  to  bring  our  spelling  into 
closer  conformity  with  our  pronunciation.  Philolog- 
ical societies  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  have  been 
trying  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  at  least,  to 
reform  English  spelling;  but  only  meager  success 
has  been  achieved  thus  far. 

The  proposed  reforms  have  been  of  two  kinds,  and 
they  have  varying  aims.  One  recommended  by  the 


at 


extreme  phonetists,  is  a  reform  which  contemplates 
a  revision  and  enlargement  of  our  alphabet.  This 
would  result  in  a  radical  transformation  of  our  writ- 
ten speech,  and  chiefly  for  this  reason  it  has  found 
few  ardent  advocates.  It  may  be  briefly  described  as 
a  reform  of  the  language.  The  other  reform  is  less 
revolutionary  and  contemplates  mainly  a  simplifica- 
tion of  our  present  spelling,  such  as  the  omission  of 
silent  letters,  the  substitution  of  "f"  for  "ph"  as  in 
phonetics  (fonetics)  and  of  "t"  for  final  "d"  as  in 
equipped  (equipt)  and  similar  emendations.  Of 
the  two  kinds  of  reform  the  latter  has,  manifestly, 
more  to  commend  it  to  popular  favor.  This  kind  of 
reform  may  be  termed  a  reform  in  the  language. 

The  public  concedes  the  unphonetic  character  of 
English  orthography,  but  the  conservatism  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  is  so  binding  that  the  people  are 
slow  to  adopt  even  the  slightest  recommendations  of 
the  philological  societies.  A  few  American  journals 
have  had  the  courage  to  adopt  certain  emended 
spellings,  such  as  thru  (through),  tho  (though), 
catalog  (catalogue)  and  the  like,  but  the  majority 
of  our  periodicals  show  by  their  practise  very  meager 
approval  of  spelling-reform.  No  publisher,  so  far 
as  known  to  the  writer,  has  ventured  as  yet  to  use 
the  emended  spelling  in  a  book  issued  by  his  firm. 
Yet  all  admit  the  need  of  spelling-reform  and  believe 
that,  if  adopted,  it  would  save  the  coming  genera- 
tion a  vast  deal  of  humdrum  work  in  acquiring  an 
accurate  knowledge  of  English  orthography. 

We  Americans,  however,  with  our  characteristic 
spirit  of  independence  have  made  bold  to  break 


in 


away  from  British  tradition  and  custom  in  the  writ- 
ing of  certain  English  words  and  have  introduced  a 
few  minor  reforms  in  our  spelling.  But  the  English 
people  have  not  followed  our  lead  in  this  matter,  be- 
ing content  to  allow  our  adopted  American  spelling, 
together  with  our  distinctive  pronunciation,  serve 
as  an  earmark  to  distinguish  American  from  British 
English.  It  is  the  practise  of  some  reputable  Brit- 
ish journals  to  disparage  our  spelling,  wherever  it 
makes  a  departure  from  English  traditions,  and  to 
refer  to  it  by  way  of  reproach  as  "American  spell- 
ing." Some  few  years  ago  the  St.  James  Gazettte, 
intending  to  express  its  disapproval  of  our  spelling, 
deprecatingly  remarked  that  "already  newspapers  in 
London  are  habitually  using  the  ugliest  forms  of 
American  spelling  and  those  silly  eccentricities  do 
not  make  the  slightest  difference  in  their  circula- 
tion." Viewed  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events, 
perhaps  this  ought  to  be  considered  as  the  forerun- 
ner of  "the  American  invasion." 

As  every  one  knows  who  has  visited  the  mother 
country,  there  is  a  perceptible  difference  not  only  in 
the  spelling,  but  also  in  the  pronunciation,  between 
American  English  and  British  English.  Of  course 
the  language  is  the  same  in  America  as  in  England  ; 
and  yet  there  are  some  appreciable  minor  points  of 
difference.  Eor  example,  the  Englishman  gives  the 
broad  sound  to  the  vowel  a  as  in  father,  when  it  is 
followed  by  such  a  combination  of  consonants  as  in 
the  words  ask,  fast,  dance,  cant,  answer,  after  and 
the  like.  In  America,  on  the  other  hand,  while  this 
pronunciation  is  heard  in  some  circles,  it  is  clearly 


30  dilutions  at 

not  the  ordinary  pronunciation  and  is  not  general, 
as  in  England.  There  is  also  a  noticeable  difference 
in  the  pronunciation  of  long  o,  the  Englishman  giv- 
ing the  vowel  a  distinctive  utterance  quite  unlike  that 
ordinarily  heard  in  America.  The  pronunciation  of 
the  word  been  is  a  shibboleth  by  which  a  man  of 
British  nationality  may  be  almost  unfailingly  dis- 
tinguished. The  native  Englishman  pronounces  the 
word  so  as  to  rhyme  with  seen,,  never  bin.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  points  of  pronunciation  there  are  cer- 
tain locutions  which  never  fail  to  betray  an  English- 
man. The  English  call  an  elevator  a  lift,  overshoes 
galoshes,  napkins  serviettes,  candy  sweets.  In  Eng- 
land a  baby-carriage  is  called  a  perambulator,  which 
is  generally  abridged  "pram"  merely;  a  lamp-post  is 
known  as  lamp-pillar  and  a  letter-box  as  a  pillar-box. 
There  no  one  would  ask  at  a  store  for  a  wash-bowl 
and  pitcher,  however  much  he  might  need  these  use- 
ful household  articles,  but  he  would  call  at  the  shop 
for  a  jug  and  basin.  An  American  in  London  must 
not  say  street  car,  but  tram  or  road  car;  not  engine 
(which  is  pronounced  injin),  but  locomotive-engine; 
not  engineer,  but  engine-driver.  In  England  many 
ordinary  household  articles  are  known  by  names  as 
different  from  those  in  our  country  as  if  the  language 
there  were  altogether  a  foreign  tongue.  Small  won- 
der, then,  that  a  keen-witted  American  maid  re- 
marked, a  propos  of  the  difference  between  British 
English  and  American  English,  that  London  was  a 
delightful  place  if  you  only  knew  the  language. 

Nowhere  is  the  difference  between  American  Eng- 
lish and  British  English  more  marked  and  interest- 


in  2Ditr  OEnglfcf)  ©peecft  31 

ing  than  in  the  varying  practise  of  spelling  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Let  us  note  some  of  the  chief 
points  of  variation. 

Our  British  cousins  assume  an  exasperating  air  of 
superiority  when  they  mention  the  matter  of  our 
spelling  and,  as  self-appointed  conservators  of  the 
language,  point  out  what  they  are  pleased  to  style 
the  offensive  eccentricities  of  American  spelling. 
The  British  journals  ever  and  anon  draw  attention 
to  our  manner  of  writing  such  words  as  favor,  honor, 
center,  program,  almanac,  tire,  curb,  check  and  criti- 
cize and  the  like,  which  they  spell  favour,  honour, 
centre,  programme,  almanack,  tyre,  kerb,  cheque  and 
criticise.  E"ow,  in  the  case  of  most  of  these  words, 
we  submit  that  the  American  spelling  is  nearer  the 
historical  spelling,  simpler  and  more  logical  than  the 
British  method.  As  for  the  words  typified  by  honor, 
our  method  is  simpler  and  nearer  to  the  ultimate 
etymology.  These  words,  it  hardly  need  be  observed, 
are  borrowed  from  the  Latin  through  the  French. 
The  British  maintain  that  for  this  reason  the  spell- 
ing ought  to  conform  to  the  French  fashion.  But 
they  overlook  the  fact  that  these  words  have  not 
always  been  written  in  English  according  to  the 
French  manner  of  writing.  Dr.  Johnson,  the  emi- 
nent lexicographer  of  the  eighteenth  century,  wrote 
honor  beside  honour,  neighbor  beside  neighbour,  har- 
bor beside  harbour  and  the  like.  Indeed,  the  great 
Cham  allowed  himself  considerable  latitude  in  the 
matter  of  English  orthography.  Moreover,  the  Nor- 
man-French forms  of  these  words  were  written  in  a 
variety  of  ways,  as  our,  eur,  ur,  and  also  or.  Even 


32  £Xue0tion0  at  Jtesue 

on  the  historical  ground,  therefore,  there  is  not  lack- 
ing some  authority  for  the  American  spelling.  If 
the  English  were  consistent,  they  would  be  forced  by 
the  logic  of  their  argument  to  write  uniformly  gov- 
ernour,  errour,  emperour,  oratour,  horrour  and  dol- 
our as  well  as  honour  and  favour.  But  practise 
shows  their  glaring  lack  of  consistency,  since  they  do 
not  spell  these  words  ordinarily  with  u.  It  ought  not 
to  be  regarded  as  a  reproach  upon  American  spell- 
ing, because  in  our  desire  for  simplicity  and  uni- 
formity we  have  rejected  the  u  in  this  entire  class  of 
words  like  honor,  thus  making  the  spelling  more  in 
keeping  with  the  Latin  derivation.  We  can  at  least 
lay  claim  to  simplicity  and  consistency.  If  we  are 
provincial,  we  can  not  be  charged  with  arbitrariness 
in  our  spelling. 

As  for  the  writing  of  center,  meter,  meager  and 
words  of  this  kind,  the  American  method  has  as 
much  history  and  logic  in  its  favor  as  the  British 
spelling  has.  Analogy,  too,  if  that  may  be  cited  as 
an  argument,  supports  our  spelling,  for  we  all  write 
perimeter,  diameter,  never  otherwise,  whether  we  be 
American  or  English.  The  word  center,  according  to 
Lowell,  who  was  no  mean  authority  on  matters  per- 
taining to  our  speech,  ais  no  Americanism;  it  en- 
tered the  language  in  that  shape  and  kept  it  at  least 
as  late  as  Defoe."  "In  the  sixteenth  and  in  the  first 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century,"  declares  Professor 
Lounsbury,  in  reference  to  the  spelling  of  center  and 
similar  words,  "while  both  ways  of  writing  these 
words  existed  side  by  side,  the  termination  er  is  far 
more  common  than  re.  The  first  complete  edition  of 


33 


Shakespeare's  plays  was  published  in  1624.  In  that 
work  sepulcher  occurs  thirteen  times;  it  is  spelled 
eleven  times  with  er.  Scepter  occurs  thirty-seven 
times  ;  it  is  not  once  spelled  with  re  ,  but  always  with 
er.  Center  occurs  twelve  times,  and  in  nine  instances 
out  of  the  twelve  it  ends  in  er"  John  Bellows,  in 
the  preface  to  his  excellent  French-English  and  Eng- 
lish-French pocket  dictionary,  states  that  "the  Act 
of  Parliament  legalizing  the  use  of  the  metric  sys- 
tem in  this  country  [England]  gives  the  words  meter, 
liter,  gram,  etc.,  spelt  on  the  American  plan."  It  is 
evident,  then,  that  our  way  of  writing  these  words 
is  quite  as  logical  and  as  much  warranted  by  the  his- 
tory of  our  tongue  as  the  British  spelling. 

The  American  orthography  is  clearly  in  advance 
of  the  British  in  the  word  almanac.  This  word  is 
not  rightly  entitled  to  the  final  kf  as  the  English 
spell  it.  This  superfluous  letter  is  a  mere  survival 
from  a  former  way  of  writing,  no  longer  in  vogue. 
It  has  been  rejected  in  music,  public,  optic  and  simi- 
1:  r  words  which  are  written  alike  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic.  In  Johnson's  dictionary  and  also  in 
our  King  James's  version  of  the  Scriptures  the  old 
spelling  generally  occurs.  Indeed,  Johnson  ap- 
pended the  excrescent  k  to  well-nigh  all  words  of  this 
class.  Strange  to  say,  there  is  one  word  of  this  class 
which  preserves  the  k  even  in  American  English,  and 
that  is  hammock.  This  is  but  an  exception  which 
goes  to  prove  that  even  American  English  with  its 
revised  orthography  is  still  far  from  being  phonetic. 

In  regard  to  words  ending  in  ize,  usage  in  Great 
Britain  has  established  the  writing  isef  as  in  civilise. 


34  €Ute0tron0  at  3J$0iie 

However,  new  formations  even  there  are  usually 
made  to  terminate  in  ize,  which  is  generally  adopted 
in  America.  Yet  American  spelling  sometimes  ex- 
hibits ise,  after  the  English  fashion.  The  British 
writing  is  derived  from  the  French,  whereas  the 
American  harks  back  to  the  original  Greek  suffix. 
The  British  spelling  of  tyre,  kerb,  programme  and 
cheque  perhaps  has  as  much  to  commend  it  as  the 
American  tire,  curb,  program  and  check.  Usage  in 
America  varies  in  the  case  of  program,  the  more  con- 
servative still  clinging  to  programme.  Tyre  and  kerb 
are  but  little  employed  here.  These  words  are 
merely  variant  forms  which  British  usage  has 
adopted.  The  spelling  cheque,  in  general  use  in 
Great  Britain  for  our  bank  check,  has  resulted 
through  the  influence  of  the  word  exchequer  with 
which  it  is  connected. 

The  usual  American  spelling  of  wagon  is  held  up 
to  public  obloquy  by  British  journalists,  who  regard 
waggon  as  the  orthodox  orthography.  Skeat,  who 
gives  both  forms  in  his  etymological  dictionary,  as- 
serts that  the  doubling  of  the  g  is  simply  a  device  to 
show  that  the  preceding  vowel  is  short.  In  the  early 
history  of  the  language  when  the  etymological  spell- 
ing was  in  vogue,  pedants  had  recourse  to  this 
method  of  changing  the  form  of  a  word  to  make  it 
phonetic,  as  they  claimed.  In  point  of  fact,  by  their 
practise  they  made  the  language  far  less  phonetic. 
Spenser  and  other  early  English  authors  write  the 
word  after  the  American  fashion.  Horace  Greeley 
once  made  a  departure  from  our  American  usage 
and  wrote  waggon,  saying  by  way  of  apology,  when 


in  flDtit  OEnglfclj  @peec{)  35 

his  attention  was  called  to  it,  that  "they  used  to  build 
wagons  heavier  in  the  good  old  times  when  he  learned 
to  spell." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment,  however, 
that  our  utilitarian  disregard  of  tradition  is  so 
strong  as  to  have  eliminated  all  useless  letters  in  our 
American  spelling.  There  is  many  a  word  in  which 
an  epenthetic  letter  is  still  retained  merely  because 
the  traditional  spelling  shows  it.  Sovereign,  comp- 
troller, island  and  rhyme  may  be  cited  as  examples 
in  point.  Perhaps  it  ought  to  be  added  that  the 
emended  spelling  rime  for  rhyme  appears  to  be 
meeting  with  favor  in  certain  philological  circles. 

There  is  one  class  of  words  which  does  not  ex- 
hibit a  uniform  method  of  writing,  either  in  Great 
Britain  or  in  America.  This  class  is  typified  by  the 
words  traveler,  counselor,  worshiper  and  the  like. 
It  will  be  readily  seen  that  these  words  are  all  de- 
rivatives, formed  from  the  primary  by  the  addition 
of  a  suffix;  and  the  writing  vacillates  between  a 
single  and  a  double  consonant  preceding  the  suffix. 
According  to  the  well-known  principle  of  English 
orthography,  these  words  are  not  entitled  to  a  double 
consonant,  and  therefore  should  never  be  written 
traveller,  counsellor  and  worshipper.  The  rule  is, 
if  the  final  syllable  of  a  word  ending  in  a  single  con- 
sonant and  preceded  by  a  short  vowel  is  accented,  the 
final  consonant,  on  the  addition  of  a  suffix  beginning 
with  a  vowel,  is  doubled ;  but  never  otherwise.  Thus 
we  write  offered,  deviled  and  the  like,  but  referred, 
transferred  and  jammed.  Hence  the  orthodox  spell- 
ing should  be  traveler^  counselor^  worshiper,  un- 


36  jCtuestfotts  at  300ue 

rivaled  and  the  like.  But  practise  shows  that  either 
spelling  is  regarded  as  correct  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  These  words  are  survivals  from  a  former 
period  in  the  history  of  the  language  when  more  lati- 
tude was  allowed  in  English  orthography  and  there 
was  no  hard  and  fast  line  drawn,  no  fixed  standard. 
The  proper  historical  spelling,  it  is  interesting  to 
note,  is  with  one  consonant,  as  in  counselor  derived 
ultimately  from  the  Latin  consilarius.  While  either 
spelling  is  considered  correct,  British  usage  favors 
the  double  consonant  (counsellor)  and  American  the 
single  (counselor).  Here  again  as  elsewhere  Ameri- 
can spelling  inclines  to  simplification  and  would 
make  these  words  conform  to  the  general  rule  of 
English  orthography  as  laid  down  above.  Strange 
to  say,  British  usage  shows  one  exception  in  the  word 
paralleled,  which  it  has  adopted  (and  not  paral- 
lelled). Here  we  find  another  instance  of  the  strik- 
ing inconsistency  of  British  orthography.  It  may  be 
a  shocking  thing  to  say,  but  investigation  will  prove 
it  true,  that  if  those  British  critics  who  censure  our 
spelling  so  severely,  as  offending  their  esthetic  sense, 
were  more  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  language, 
they  would,  without  doubt,  have  far  less  comment 
to  make  upon  the  so-called  eccentricities  of  American 
spelling. 

It  remains  to  notice  some  apparent  exceptions  to 
the  rule  of  English  orthography  stated  above.  Note- 
worthy among  these  are  the  words  handicapped  and 
kidnapped,  which  are  written  alike  in  British  and 
American  English.  But  they  can  be  explained  and 
are  only  apparent  exceptions.  A  moment's  reflection 


in  SDut  <£ngli0&  %peedb  37 

is  sufficient  to  convince  one  that  handicap  and  kidnap 
are  not  simple  words,  but  in  reality  compounds  in 
which  the  last  element  has  not  completely  lost  its 
identity  in  combination.  Because  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  independent  words  cap  and  nap  in  these 
compounds,  they  conform  to  the  rule  as  a  matter  of 
fact  and  therefore  double  the  final  consonant,  on  the 
addition  of  a  suffix  beginning  with  a  vowel.  Hence, 
if  they  are  exceptions,  they  must  be  considered  ex- 
ceptions which  prove  the  rule. 

The  few  points  we  have  drawn  attention  to  in  this 
imperfect  little  sketch  are  enough  to  show  how  un- 
phonetic  and  illogical  is  our  English  spelling.  Many 
of  the  eccentricities  of  our  orthography,  according 
to  Skeat,  have  resulted  from  the  futile  attempts  of 
pedants  in  the  sixteenth  century  to  make  English 
spelling  etymological  and  to  make  it  conform  to  the 
classics,  from  which  a  vast  multitude  of  words  had 
been  introduced  into  our  speech.  These  conscious 
attempts  at  etymological  spelling  gave  rise  to  end- 
less confusion  and  disorder.  But  other  causes,  such 
as  analogy  and  mere  caprice,  also  contributed  to  this 
end.  Thus  we  are  to  explain  the  writing  of  the  word 
female,  for  example.  This  word,  coming  from  the 
Latin  femella  through  the  French  femelle  into  Eng- 
lish, was  originally  written  femelle  and  would  prob- 
ably have  retained  this  form  to  the  present  time. 
But  because  of  a  fancied  connection  with  the  word 
male,  the  spelling  was  changed  to  female.  In  a  simi- 
lar manner  is  to  be  explained  the  spelling  of  numer- 
ous other  words  in  our  language  which  seem  per- 
fectly natural  and  logical  on  first  blush. 


38  £Xue0tion0  at 


AUTHOEITY  IN  ENGLISH  PEONUNCIA- 
TIOK 

For  wellnigh  two  centuries  a  popular  belief  has 
prevailed  throughout  the  English-speaking  world  that 
there  should  be  a  standard  of  pronunciation,  which 
should  be  followed  in  all  those  countries  where  Eng- 
lish is  the  native  tongue.  Many  people,  holding  this 
view,  assume  that  some  such  norm  is  unconsciously 
observed  by  men  of  education  and  culture,  who,  be- 
cause of  their  influence  and  rank,  are  generally  con- 
ceded the  right  to  establish  the  customs  of  speech.  It 
is  but  natural,  therefore,  that  men  with  greater  or 
less  claim  to  culture  and  education  should  take  it 
upon  themselves  from  time  to  time  to  determine  the 
supposed  standard  of  pronunciation.  Thus  as  far 
back  as  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  we 
find  that  the  orthoepists  of  that  period  undertook  to 
ascertain  and  record  the  pronunciation  of  English  as 
practised  in  polite  society. 

ISFow,  the  early  orthoepists  discovered,  apparently 
to  their  astonishment,  that  English  pronunciation, 
even  in  the  most  cultured  circles,  far  from  being 
fixed  by  ironclad  rules,  was  quite  an  elastic  thing, 
allowing  considerable  latitude.  Indeed,  two  centuries 
ago  pronunciation  in  English,  as  reflected  by  the  best 
usage,  was  no  more  uniform  than  it  is  to-day.  Then 


n     ur  <ng0)    >peec)  39 

as  now,  men  recognized  no  fixed  and  absolute  stand- 
ard of  English  pronunciation.  They  followed  their 
own  tastes  and  individual  preferences,  despite  the 
orthoepical  suggestions  and  recommendations  of  their 
contemporaries.  Prejudice  and  caprice,  too,  in  those 
days,  as  in  the  present  time,  were  factors  to  be  reck- 
oned with,  so  that  the  path  of  the  would-be  author- 
ity on  pronunciation  was  beset  with  no  slight  diffi- 
culty. 

It  must  not  be  inferred,  however,  that  the  or- 
thoepists  themselves  were  a  unit  and  in  perfect  har- 
mony as  to  current  usage.  On  the  contrary,  they 
were  frequently  far  apart  in  recording  the  pronun- 
ciation sanctioned  by  the  best  society  and  differed 
quite  as  much  as  their  worthy  successors  of  the  pres- 
ent day.  They  sometimes  indulged  in  vituperation 
and  severe  censure  at  each  others'  expense  and  made 
no  attempt  to  conceal  their  disapproval  of  a  rival's 
authority,  which  they  expressed  in  plain,  vigorous 
Anglo-Saxon.  Some  of  their  sarcastic  remarks  fur- 
nish spicy  and  entertaining  reading  to  the  student 
who  is  willing  to  plod  his  way  through  the  dreary 
waste  of  those  forgotten  dust-covered  tomes. 

The  most  conspicuous  among  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury orthoepists  were  Baily,  Johnson,  Buchanan, 
Sheridan  and  Walker.  Some  of  these  were  Scotch, 
and  some  Irish,  and  some,  of  course,  English.  Quite 
naturally  it  struck  the  fancy  of  an  Englishman  as 
somewhat  humorous,  not  to  say  absurd,  for  an  Irish- 
man or  a  Scotchman  to  pose  as  an  authority  on  Eng- 
lish pronunciation.  So  the  damaging  taunt  of  for- 
eign nationality  and  consequent  lack  of  acquaintance 


40 IXttegtiong  at  Sastie 

with  English  usage  was  flaunted  in  the  face  of  Bu- 
chanan and  Sheridan,  natives  of  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land, respectively. 

When  Doctor  Johnson  was  informed  of  Sheri- 
dan's plan  of  producing  an  English  dictionary  that 
was  designed  to  indicate  the  pronunciation  of  each 
word,  he  ridiculed  the  idea  of  an  Irishman's  pre- 
suming to  teach  Englishmen  how  to  speak  their 
native  language  as  utterly  absurd.  "Why,  Sir," 
growled  the  autocrat  of  eighteenth  century  literature, 
amy  dictionary  shows  you  the  accent  of  words,  if  you 
can  but  remember  them."  Then  on  being  reminded 
that  his  dictionary  does  not  give  the  pronunciation  of 
the  vowels,  "Why,  Sir,"  continued  he,  in  his  charac- 
teristic surly  manner,  "consider  how  much  easier  it 
is  to  learn  a  language  by  the  ear  than  by  any  marks. 
Sheridan's  dictionary  may  do  very  well ;  but  you  can 
not  always  carry  it  about  with  you;  and  when  you 
want  the  word,  you  have  not  the  dictionary.  It  is 
like  the  man  who  has  a  sword  that  will  not  draw.  It 
is  an  admirable  sword,  to  be  sure;  but  while  your 
enemy  is  cutting  your  throat,  you  are  unable  to  use 
it.  Besides,  Sir,  what  entitles  Sheridan  to  fix  the 
pronunciation  of  English?  He  has,  in  the  first 
place,  the  disadvantage  of  being  an  Irishman ;  and  if 
he  says  he  will  fix  it  after  the  example  of  the  best 
company,  why  they  differ  among  themselves.  I  re- 
member an  instance:  when  I  published  the  plan  of 
my  dictionary,  Lord  Chesterfield  told  me  that  the 
word  great  should  be  pronounced  to  rhyme  to  state; 
and  Sir  William  Yonge  sent  me  word  that  it  should 
be  pronounced  so  as  to  rhyme  to  seat,  and  that  none 


in  Dur  <OngH0{) 


but  Irishmen  would  pronounce  it  graitf.  Now,  here 
were  two  men  of  the  highest  rank,  the  one  the  best 
speaker  in  the  House  of  Lords,  the  other  the  best 
speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons,  differing  en- 
tirely." 

As  this  quotation  shows  clearly  and  forcibly,  even 
the  usage  of  the  very  best  speakers  in  England  in 
the  eighteenth  century  was  far  from  uniform  and 
harmonious,  as  has  been  intimated  in  the  opening 
paragraph.  Moreover,  it  is  evident  from  the  striking 
illustration  Johnson  uses  that  English  pronuncia- 
tion must  have  varied  much  more  two  centuries  ago 
than  it  does  to-day;  for  no  two  speakers  of  national 
reputation,  such  as  the  leaders  of  the  two  chambers 
of  Parliament  presumably  must  have  been,  would 
differ  so  radically  at  the  present  time  in  their  pro- 
nunciation. The  truth  is,  in  those  good  old  days  men 
paid  but  little  attention  either  to  pronunciation  or  to 
spelling.  It  is  a  fact  not  so  widely  known  as  it  de- 
serves to  be,  that  English  orthography  two  centuries 
ago  was  just  emerging  from  a  state  of  confusion  and 
chaos;  and  law  and  order  were  then  for  the  first 
time  beginning  to  appear.  The  result  is  the  con- 
ventional spelling  which  only  since  the  eighteenth 
century  has  been  stereotyped  in  the  form  now  so 
familiar  to  all  educated  people.  And  not  even  yet, 
as  we  know,  has  English  orthography  had  its  perfect 
work.  As  late  as  Doctor  Johnson's  time,  the  spell- 
ing of  many  English  words  had  not  yet  been  crys- 
tallized, and  not  a  few  words  could  be  spelled  in  two 
distinct  ways,  either  of  which  was  recognized  as  cor- 
rect For  instance,  the  spelling  of  soap,  clorik,  choke 


42  £Xue0tions  at 

and  fuel,  to  select  only  a  few  examples,  as  recorded 
in  his  dictionary,  vacillated  between  "sope,"  "cloke," 
"choak,"  "fewel"  and  the  present  accepted  spelling 
of  these  words.  These  variant  spellings,  long  since 
rejected,  now  seem  to  us  either  attempts  at  phonetic 
spelling  or  quaint  and  curious  imitations  of  Chau- 
cerian orthography.  Having  discussed  elsewhere* 
the  subject  of  English  spelling,  I  dismiss  the  matter 
here  with  this  passing  reference. 

The  crystallized  form  of  English  spelling  which 
has  been  brought  about  mainly  through  the  influence 
of  the  printing-press  in  the  last  few  centuries  we 
accept  as  a  matter  of  course,  little  thinking  of  the 
difficulties  innumerable  which  the  printer  and  the 
"gentle"  reader  encountered  three  centuries  ago.  But 
the  very  existence  of  a  standard  orthography,  as  a 
moment's  reflection  will  show,  has  necessitated  as  its 
indispensable  adjunct  the  pronouncing  dictionary. 

The  pronouncing  dictionary,  therefore,  is  a  modern 
production;  it  was  hardly  known  before  the  first 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  held  by 
some  scholars,  notably  Professor  Lounsbury  in  his 
"Standard  of  Pronunciation  in  English/7  that  the 
pronouncing  dictionary  was  called  into  existence  by 
the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  imperfectly  educated 
middle  class  to  know  what  to  say  and  how  to  say  it. 
This  desire  became  stronger  and  stronger  as  the  mem- 
bers of  that  growing  class  of  England's  population 
rose  by  degrees  into  social  prominence.  Possessing 
little  culture  and  few  social  advantages,  and  lacking 

*See  The  Question  of  Preference  in  Spelling. 


in  2Dut  OEnglfef)  Speed)  43 

confidence  in  their  meager  training,  such  people  were 
not  willing  to  exercise  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
and  consequently  they  sought  out  an  authority  and 
guide.  They  were  eager  to  learn  the  modes  of  speech 
which  obtained  in  the  most  highly  cultured  circles, 
the  jus  et  norma,  loquendi  of  the  nobility.  It  was 
natural  therefore,  since  the  occasion  appeared  to  de- 
mand it,  that  self-appointed  guides  should  come  for- 
ward and  offer  to  conduct  the  multitudes  of  social 
pariahs  through  the  wilderness  of  orthoepical  embar- 
rassment into  the  Canaan  of  polite  usage.  Such  was 
probably  the  origin  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary. 

It  will  prove  interesting  to  consider  some  of  the 
pronunciations  authorized  by  the  early  orthoepists 
as  reflecting  contemporary  usage.  How  unlike  cur- 
rent usage  many  of  those  early  pronunciations  are, 
the  reader  will  see  for  himself.  But  first  a  word  as 
to  the  orthoepists  themselves. 

The  earliest  of  the  eighteenth  century  orthoepists 
is  Baily.  His  dictionary  enjoyed  the  enviable  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  first  authority  on  English  pro- 
nunciation during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  But  Baily's  supremacy  was  eclipsed  by 
Johnson,  whose  epoch-marking  dictionary  appeared 
in  1755.  Johnson  claimed  to  record  the  most  ap- 
proved method  of  English  orthoepy,  and  his  prestige 
as  a  man  of  letters  contributed  speedily  to  establish 
his  dictionary  as  the  ultimate  authority  on  English 
pronunciation.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that 
Johnson  only  indicated  the  syllable  on  which  the 
accent  falls.  This  left  much  to  be  desired  as  a  pro- 
nouncing dictionary.  So,  in  1766,  Buchanan,  a 


44  £Xue0tion0  at 

Scotchman,  gave  to  the  world  his  dictionary  which 
challenged  Johnson's  pre-eminence.  A  few  years 
later,  in  1780,  to  be  accurate,  Sheridan  published  his 
dictionary.  Sheridan  was  an  Irishman  by  birth,  as 
has  been  said,  the  son  of  the  famous  British  orator 
and  dramatist,  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan,  whose 
plays  are  so  favorably  known  to  us  through  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson's interpretation.  Sheridan's  nationality  was 
used  by  his  competitors  to  prejudice  the  public 
against  his  dictionary  and  to  discount  it  as  an  author- 
ity on  English  pronunciation.  Still  Sheridan  en- 
joyed a  considerable  vogue. 

In  1791  Walker  published  his  dictionary.  The 
reputation  of  this  work,  in  a  revised  form,  extended 
far  into  the  last  century,  so  we  are  informed  by  the 
late  Mr.  Ellis  in  his  authoritative  work  on  English 
pronunciation.  Walker,  like  Sheridan,  was  an  actor, 
but  unlike  his  rival  he  was  an  Englishman  by  birth. 
He  did  not  fail  to  draw  attention  to  the  advantage 
this  circumstance  would  naturally  give  him  in  the 
popular  estimation,  in  advertising  the  merits  of  his 
book.  In  his  treatment  of  the  principles  of  pronun- 
ciation, however,  Walker  shows  a  feeble  grasp  of  his 
subject,  and  the  most  serious  criticism  upon  his  book 
is  that  he  was  unduly  influenced  by  the  spelling  in 
ascertaining  the  pronunciation  of  a  word.  aln  al- 
most every  part  of  his  principles,"  says  Mr.  Ellis, 
speaking  of  Walker's  work,  "and  in  his  remarks  upon 
particular  words  throughout  his  dictionary,  one  will 
see  the  most  evident  marks  of  insufficient  knowledge 
and  of  that  kind  of  pedantic  self-sufficiency  which  is 


in  f)ur  «BngIi0f)  ^peecf)  45 

the  true  growth  of  half -enlightened  ignorance." 
Such  drastic  criticism  upon  the  author  of  a  diction- 
ary which  was  esteemed  the  highest  authority  on 
English  pronunciation  during  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  does  not  invite  confidence  in  the  results 
of  our  early  orthoepists.  Rather  it  makes  us  feel  that 
none  of  them  is  perhaps  entitled  to  credit.  Probably 
Doctor  Johnson  shared  this  feeling  when  he  ex- 
claimed in  the  preface  to  his  dictionary,  Quis  (wtem 
custodiet  ipsos  custodes? 

So  much  for  the  lexicographers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  pronun- 
ciations authorized  by  them,  which  have  long  since 
been  discarded.  These  will  serve  as  illustrations  to 
bring  home  to  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  truth  that 
our  speech  is  slowly  but  surely  and  constantly  chang- 
ing, and  that  English  pronunciation,  unlike  English 
spelling,  has  never  been  stereotyped  in  a  fast,  un- 
varying form.  They  will  also  show  how  indispensa- 
ble an  auxiliary  to  our  crystallized,  conventional 
spelling  has  the  pronouncing  dictionary  become. 

An  interesting  illustration  is  furnished  by  the 
word  asparagus.  The  popular  pronunciation  of  this 
word  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  sparrow  grass. 
This  was  felt  by  the  orthoepists,  however,  to  be  a 
vulgar  corruption  of  the  word,  and  they  therefore 
strove  with  concerted  effort  to  stem  the  popular  tide 
and  to  make  the  pronunciation  conform  to  abstract 
propriety  as  indicated  by  the  spelling.  Walker,  in 
commenting  upon  the  pronunciation  of  the  word,  re- 
marks, as  if  apologizing  for  the  theoretically  correct 
form  which  he  recommends,  that  "the  corruption  of 


46  dilutions  at 

the  word  into  sparrow-grass  is  so  general  that  aspara- 
gus has  an  air  of  stiffness  and  pedantry."  Another 
word  with  a  no  less  interesting  history  is  cucumber. 
This  word  used  to  be  generally  pronounced  cowcum- 
"ber.  The  popular  pronunciation  of  this  word  as  well 
as  of  asparagus,  once  so  universal,  has  survived  even 
up  to  the  present  in  the  lingo  of  the  illiterate  whites 
of  New  England  and  in  the  Negro  dialect.  This  vul- 
gar pronunciation  which  was  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  to 
the  eighteenth  century  lexicographers,  it  is  instruc- 
tive to  note  in  passing,  was  not  the  result  of  mere 
caprice,  but  was  warranted  by  an  old  variant  spell- 
ing of  the  word.  This  historic  spelling,  long  since 
discarded  altogether  by  the  users  of  English,  was 
formerly  very  prevalent  and  in  good  literary  usage. 
Hence  little  wonder  that  the  vulgar  pronunciation 
for  a  long  time  contested  the  supremacy  with  the 
mode  of  utterance  now  universally  accepted.  Even 
so  high  an  authority  as  Mr.  Pepys  refers  in  his 
"Diary"  to  a  certain  man  as  "dead  of  eating  cow- 
cumbers."  It  was  not  till  wellnigh  the  middle  of 
the  last  century  that  the  orthoepists  Knowles  and 
Smart  ventured  to  denounce  cowcumber  along  with 
sparrow-grass  as  vulgar  and  therefore  tabooed  in  po- 
lite circles. 

It  is  a  well-established  fact  in  the  history  of  Eng- 
lish pronunciation  that  in  the  seventeenth  century 
and  far  into  the  following  century  such  words  as 
spoil,  toil,  boil,  and  so  on,  were  pronounced,  even  in 
best  usage,  precisely  as  they  are  uttered  to-day  in  the 
Negro  dialect  and  by  the  illiterate  whites  among  us, 
that  is,  just  as  if  they  were  written  "spile,"  "tile" 


in  £Dut  OEnglte!)  @>peedb  47 

and    "bile."      This   is   conclusively   proved   by   the 
rhymes  of  Dry  den  and  Pope.*    It  is  further  evident 
from  the  rhymes  of  the  poets  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  that  this   archaic  pronunciation 
persisted  almost  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century.     This  pronunciation  was  regarded  by  the 
orthoepists  as  antiquated  and  vulgar,  and  they  did 
not  fail  to  denounce  it  in  strong  terms,  warning 
against  its  use.     In  1773  Kenrick  records  with  min- 
gled regret  and  disgust  that  it  would  appear  affected 
to  pronounce  such  words  as  'boil,  join  and  many  oth- 
ers otherwise  than  as  "bile"  and  "jine."    But  toward 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  present  pro- 
nunciation began  to  prevail  and  "the  banished  diph- 
thong," as  Nares  records  with  triumphant  delight, 
"seemed  at  length  to  be  upon  its  return."    This  same 
orthoepist  informs  us,  and  we  may  well  believe  him, 
that  it  was  the  authority  of  the  poets,  who  had  pil- 
loried the  offensive  pronunciation  in  their  verse,  that 
retarded  the  progress  of  the  received  sound  of  the 
diphthong  which  finally  triumphed. 

The  early  lexicographers  were  divided  on  the  pro- 
nunciation of  vase.  Indeed,  two  centuries  have  not 
sufficed  to  unite  their  successors  in  perfect  harmony 
on  this  question.  The  word  to-day  vacillates  be- 
tween four  received  pronunciations.  The  great  un- 
washed pronounce  vase  to  rhyme  with  base  and  case. 
Some  pronounce  the  word  as  if  written  "vaz"  with 
"the  broad  a."  Others,  associating  it  with  its  French 
equivalent,  pronounce  the  word  "vauze."  Others 

*See  Vulgarisms  With  A  Pedigree. 


48  dilutions  at 

still  pronounce  it  so  as  to  rhyme  with  amaze  and 
gaze.  Of  these  four  pronunciations  the  first  is  the 
most  prevalent  to-day,  as  it  also  was  two  centuries 
ago.  According  to  the  Century  Dictionary,  the  word 
was  introduced  into  English  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  after  the  analogy  of 
words  of  its  class,  it  would  naturally  be  pronounced 
so  as  to  rhyme  with  case  and  base.  But  the  recency 
of  the  word  and  its  familiar  association  with  art  have 
given  rise  to  the  attempt  to  make  it  conform  to  the 
analogy  of  the  French  pronunciation  and  sound  it  as 
if  written  "vauze."  The  early  occasional  spelling 
of  the  word  as  vause  doubtless  contributed  somewhat 
to  the  extension  of  this  latter  pronunciation.  This 
French  pronunciation,  says  the  Century,  is  now 
affected  by  many.  It  is  worth  while  to  remark,  how- 
ever, that  while  the  Century  recognizes  the  French 
pronunciation,  it  still  gives  the  preference  to  the  old 
historic  pronunciation,  viz.,  that  rhyming  with  case 
and  base. 

Now,  in  the  eighteenth  century  some  of  the  or- 
thoepists  favored  one  pronunciation  and  some  an- 
other. Sheridan,  Scott,  Kenrick,  Perry  and  Bu- 
chanan declared  for  the  pronunciation  rhyming  with 
case  and  base.  On  the  other  hand,  Smith,  Johnston 
and  Walker  expressed  themselves  in  favor  of  avaze." 
Walker  says  that  he  has  uniformly  heard  it  so  pro- 
nounced, but  adds  the  significant  remark  that  the 
word  is  pronounced  according  to  the  French  fashion 
"sometimes  by  people  of  refinement;  but  this,  being 
too  refined  for  the  general  ear,  is  now  but  seldom 
heard."  This  French  pronunciation,  however  strange 


fit  2Pur  dEttglfe!)  Speed)  49 

the  comment  may  appear  to  us  in  view  of  his  wide 
acquaintance  with  English  usage,  the  late  Mr.  A.  J. 
Ellis  averred  was  the  most  familiar  to  him.  So  the 
struggle  between  the  several  pronunciations  of  vase 
continues  still,  and  no  one  can  say  which  will  ulti- 
mately prevail. 

Another  interesting  illustration  of  vacillation  of 
usage  two  centuries  ago  is  furnished  in  the  pronun- 
ciation of  either  and  neither.  Like  the  word  vase, 
these  words  show  incidentally  how  long  a  time  two 
pronunciations  of  the  same  word  may  linger  in  good 
usage  before  either  supplants  the  other.  There  is 
to-day  probably  as  much  variation  in  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  either  and  neither  as  there  was  a  century  and 
a  half  ago.  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  i 
sound  was  conceded  by  some  of  the  orthoepists  as 
permissible  in  these  words.  Two  authorities,  Bu- 
chanan and  Johnston,  declared  for  the  new  pronun- 
ciation, that  is,  "ither' '  and  "nither."  But  since  they 
were  both  Scotchmen,  their  authority  was  discounted. 
On  the  other  hand,  Sheridan  and  Walker  recom- 
mended the  e  sound  and  used  their  influence  to  be- 
speak for  it  general  endorsement.  They  recognized 
the  i  sound,  to  be  sure,  but  only  on  sufferance.  From 
that  day  to  the  present  the  battle  has  waged  more  or 
less  fiercely  between  the  advocates  of  these  respec- 
tive pronunciations  of  either  and  neither.  Which 
will  ultimately  prevail,  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 
It  may  be  said,  however,  that  analogy  and  history 
are  on  the  side  of  the  e  sound.  Yet  the  i  sound  ap- 
pears to  be  encroaching  at  present  on  the  former  pro- 
nunciation. There  is  still  another  pronunciation  of 


50  €Uie0tion0  at  300ue 

these  words  which  we  now  rarely  hear.  I  refer  to 
the  old  dialectical  pronunciation  as  "ather"  and 
"nather."  This  pronunciation  was  current  in  Doc- 
tor Johnson's  time,  though  it  probably  did  not  enjoy 
the  sanction  of  good  usage.  On  being  asked  one 
day  whether  he  regarded  "ither,"  or  "ether"  as  the 
proper  pronunciation  of  either,  the  old  Doctor  is  said 
to  have  blurted  out  in  his  characteristic  crabbed  man- 
ner, "Nather,  Sir!"  This  pronunciation  survives 
now  only  as  an  Irishism. 

Another  class  of  former  pronunciations  surviving 
now  as  an  Irishism,  or  at  best  as  a  provincialism 
merely,  is  exemplified  by  such  words  as  nature,  creat- 
ure and  picture.  In  Dryden's  and  Pope's  time  these 
words  were  pronounced  "nater,"  "crater"  and 
"picter."*  These  pronunciations  are  preserved  still 
in  the  Yankee  dialect,  as  shown  in  Lowell's  inimita- 
ble Biglow  Papers,  and  of  course  they  are  frequently 
heard  on  Irish  lips.  But  they  long  ago  dropped  out 
of  the  speech  of  polite  society.  There  is  one  notable 
exception  found  in  the  word  figure.  The  variant 
pronunciation  of  this  word  as  "figer"  survives  in 
standard  English  as  a  heritage  from  the  seventeenth 
century. 

Quite  as  instructive  an  illustration  of  survivals  in 
pronunciation,  is  furnished  by  the  British  pronun- 
ciation of  clerk  and  Derby.  The  English,  as  is  well 
known,  pronounce  these  words  as  if  written  "dark" 
and  "Darby."  They  used  to  pronounce  clergy  with 
the  same  vowel  sound,  and  many  other  words  be- 

*See  Vulgarisms  With  A  Pedigree. 


in  2Dut  <£n0lt0i)  @>peec&  51 


sides.  But  it  is  a  significant  sign  of  the  approaching 
change  in  British  usage  in  respect  to  these  words 
that  a  recent  British  dictionary,  the  New  Historical, 
in  commenting  on  clerk  admits  that  the  American 
pronunciation  of  this  word  has  become  somewhat 
frequent  of  late  in  London  and  its  neighborhood. 
(Are  we  to  look  upon  this  as  a  result  of  the  much- 
discussed  American  invasion  ?)  But  our  British 
cousins  are  still  wedded  to  their  Derby  (Darby)  and 
show  no  sign  of  abandoning  either  the  old  pronun- 
ciation or  the  custom.  Even  we  Americans  cling 
tenaciously  to  Serjeant  and  show  but  little  inclina- 
tion to  make  that  conform  speedily  to  the  analogy 
of  other  words  of  its  class  and  to  pronounce  it  in 
accordance  with  the  spelling.  But,  no  doubt,  this 
word,  also,  in  the  course  of  time,  will  yield  to  the 
pressure  of  analogy,  and  our  time-honored  serjeant, 
with  the  flight  of  years,  is  destined  to  be  classed 
among  those  pronunciations  that  have  lost  caste.  The 
,early  orthoepists  uniformly  pronounced  this  entire 
class  of  words  as  our  British  cousins  pronounce  them 
at  the  present  time,  that  is,  as  if  they  were  written 
"clark,"  "sarjeant"  and  so  on.  Indeed,  it  is  the 
spelling  that  has  been  the  main  factor  in  effecting 
the  change  in  the  pronunciation  of  these  words. 
There  is  a  strong  tendency  in  English  to  pronounce 
a  wrord  as  it  is  written,  and  this  tendency  has  been 
asserting  itself  with  ever  increasing  force  since  Eng- 
lish spelling  has  been  crystallized  and  thereby  ren- 
dered less  subject  to  preference  or  caprice. 

A    constantly    recurring    question,    which    never 
ceased  to  vex  the  spirit  of  the  early  orthoepists,  was, 


52  £Xuc0tion$  at 

where  to  place  the  accent  in  the  case  of  contemplate, 
demonstrate,  illustrate  and  similar  words  of  classical 
origin.  The  question  at  issue  here  is  whether  the 
stress  shall  fall  upon  the  antepenultimate  or  the 
penultimate.  Even  with  all  the  accumulated  knowl- 
edge of  the  centuries  we  are  no  nearer  a  solution  of 
this  perplexing  question  than  were  the  Elizabethans. 
Shakespeare  could  say  indifferently  confiscate  or  con- 
fiscate, demonstrate  or  demonstrate.  Here  the  battle 
has  been  waged  between  the  scholars,  on  the  one  hand, 
who  insist  upon  strict  propriety,  and  the  uninitiated, 
on  the  other,  who  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance 
and  by  intuition  place  the  accent  upon  the  initial 
syllable.  As  is  evident  at  a  glance,  these  words 
come  to  us  from  the  classics.  The  scholars  there- 
fore, somewhat  pedantically,  insist  upon  retaining  the 
stress  on  the  syllable  which  bore  it  in  the  original 
Latin  or  Greek.  Per  contra,  the  common  people, 
who  know  "little  Latin  and  less  Greek"  and  care  not 
a  fig  for  the  original  accent,  instinctively  throw  the 
stress  upon  the  first  syllable,  in  keeping  with  their 
feeling  for  their  mother  tongue.  This  feeling  for 
the  language,  which  the  Germans  call  "Sprachge- 
fuhl"  is,  after  all,  a  safer  guide  than  the  rules  laid 
down  by  the  pedants.  Candor  compels  us  to  admit 
that  the  popular  tendency  is  more  in  harmony  with 
the  genius  of  our  vernacular.  But  the  scholars  have 
made  a  brave  fight  for  what  we  may  demoniate  ab- 
stract propriety,  and  the  result,  thus  far,  is  a  drawn 
battle.  Each  side  has  scored  some  points,  and  each 
side  has  had  to  make  some  concessions.  Thus  bal- 
cony, academy,  decorous  and  metamorphosis,  to  cite 


in  flDttr  OEngltef)  Speecft  53 

a  few  concrete  examples,  have  finally  triumphed  over 
the  earlier  pedantic  pronunciations,  which  required 
the  accent  on  the  penult  of  these  words.  Horizon,  on 
the  other  hand,  stands  as  a  monument  of  a  concession 
to  the  learned,  since  this  word  in  Elizabethan  times 
had  the  stress  on  the  initial  syllable,  as  had  also  the 
name  of  the  month  July.  Popular  usage  in  favor  of 
the  received  pronunciation  of  auditor,  senator,  vic- 
tory, orator  and  many  similar  words  has  achieved  a 
decided  triumph  over  the  early  orthoepists,  who,  it 
was  very  obvious,  were  fighting  a  losing  battle  in 
their  efforts  to  retain  the  classical  accent. 

It  follows  that  pronunciation  is  the  resultant 
product  of  several  forces  which  are  silently  but  con- 
stantly acting  upon  the  living  language.  There  are, 
to  be  sure,  various  methods  of  pronunciation,  but 
the  standard  is  that  sanctioned  by  the  most  cultivated 
circles  of  society.  Now,  it  is  the  function  of  the 
pronouncing  dictionary,  and  its  sole  reason  for  exist- 
ence, to  determine  and  record  the  usage  of  the  most 
cultured  classes.  But  here  is  where  the  rub  comes. 
This  is  the  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  the  lexicog- 
raphers. It  may  seem,  upon  first  blush,  that  the 
task  of  the  orthoepist  is  easy  enough.  But  not  so  in 
actual  practice.  Countless  and  insuperable  difficul- 
ties soon  begin  to  loom  up  a  little  ahead  in  the  path 
of  the  intending  orthoepist,  and  he  finds,  to  his  re- 
gret and  his  occasional  disgust,  that  the  way  he  has 
marked  out  for  himself  is  not  strewn  with  roses.  It 
is  an  arduous  undertaking  which  holds  out  but 
meager  hope  of  successful  accomplishment,  'to  make 
an  accurate  record  of  the  pronunciation  received  in 


54  fXue0tion0  at  300ue 

any  large  class  of  society.  The  labor  and  trouble  are 
multiplied  many  times  when  an  attempt  is  made  to 
determine  the  best  orthoepical  usage  in  a  democracy. 
There  is  really  no  absolute  standard  of  pronuncia- 
tion in  English  and  there  can  not  be,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  as  Professor  Lounsbury  has 
clearly  demonstrated  in  his  recent  luminous  book  on 
this  subject. 

Yet  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  pronouncing 
dictionary  is  constantly  making  for  uniformity  of 
pronunciation.  There  is  far  less  difference  in  Eng- 
lish orthoepy  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, even  despite  the  present  diversity  of  good 
usage,  than  there  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  A  glance  at  the  history  of  the  usage, 
if  we  may  trust  Professor  Lounsbury,  an  eminent  au- 
thority on  English  pronunciation,  will  readily  con- 
vince the  reader  of  this  fact.  This  result  is  the 
direct  outgrowth  of  the  increased  facilities  for  inter- 
course between  communities,  and  of  the  gradual  dif- 
fusion of  education  which  the  last  two  centuries  have 
witnessed.  With  the  spread  of  education  there  go 
along  those  habits  of  speech  which  are  generally  rec- 
ognized to  be  in  accord  with  best  usage  and  which 
therefore  have  most  to  commend  them  to  popular 
favor.  But  till  men  cease  to  exercise  the  right  of 
choice  in  the  mode  of  utterance,  till  men  prefer,  for 
the  sake  of  uniformity,  to  say  exclusively  "hostile" 
and  not  "hostile,"  "servile"  and  not  "servile,"  "rise" 
and  not  "rice,"  to  mention  an  example  of  variant 
usage,  so  long  will  there  probably  be  a  diversity  of 
pronunciation  and  the  consequent  need  for  the  pro- 


in  fiDtit  dBnglfeft  @pcec|)  55 

nouncing  dictionary.  This  consummation  so  devoutly 
to  be  wished  we  may  expect  at  the  Greek  Kalends. 
We  may  rest  assured,  therefore,  that  the  pronouncing 
dictionary  is  here  to  stay. 

Every  man  has  his  preference  as  to  his  pronounc- 
ing dictionary,  which  he  regards  with  more  or  less 
confidence  and,  may  be,  reverence,  as  his  final  au- 
thority. To  this  he  resorts  in  all  orthoepical  ques- 
tions, for  final  solution.  This,  of  course,  is  a  legiti- 
mate function  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary.  The 
fact  is,  the  vocabulary  of  the  average  educated  man 
is  so  extremely  limited  and  the  vocabulary  of  the 
language  so  extremely  copious  that  there  are  thou- 
sands of  words  of  a  technical  character  which  even 
the  most  accomplished  scholars  have  never  once 
heard  tittered.  The  average  educated  man  who 
knows  that  English  spelling  is  a  very  untrustworthy 
guide  to  pronunciation  is  perforce  driven  to  consult 
his  Webster,  or  his  Worcester,  or  his  Standard,  or 
mayhap  his  Century.  Only  then  can  he  pronounce 
an  unfamiliar  English  word  with  any  assurance  of 
propriety. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  every  educated  man 
has  his  favorite  dictionary,  it  is  probably  true  that 
no  man's  pronunciation  is  in  entire  accord  with  the 
dictionary  he  habitually  follows.  The  late  Mr.  Ellis 
gave  a  suggestive  test  which  I  believe  has  never  been 
successfully  challenged.  "I  do  not  remember,"  said 
he,  "ever  meeting  with  a  person  of  general  educa- 
tion, or  even  literary  habits,  who  could  read  off,  with- 
out hesitation,  the  whole  of  such  a  list  of  words  as: 
bourgeois,  demy,  actinism,  velleity,  batman,  beaufin, 


at 


brevier,  rowlock,  fusil,  flugleman,  vase,  tassel,  buoy, 
oboe,  archimandrite,  etc.,  and  give  them  in  each  case 
the  same  pronunciation  as  is  assigned  in  any  given 
pronouncing  dictionary  now  in  use."  Let  the  reader 
try  these  test  words  and  see  whether  he  pronounces 
this  short  list  according  to  any  received  authority  in 
use  at  the  present  day. 

It  may  not  prove  an  altogether  unprofitable  in- 
quiry how  our  pronouncing  dictionaries  are  made. 
Such  an  inquiry,  if  pursued,  may  teach  us  somewhat 
of  the  methods  of  the  orthoepists  to  ascertain  good 
usage.  The  method  formerly  adopted  was  very 
much  after  this  fashion:  The  lexicographer  studies 
in  his  own  library  the  pronouncing  dictionary  of 
everybody  who  has  taken  the  pains  to  compile  one, 
whether  he  be  an  Englishman,  an  Irishman,  a  Scotch- 
man, or  an  American.  He  compares  these  several 
dictionaries  and  records  their  variations.  From 
these  he  selects  those  pronunciations  which,  for  any 
special  reason,  commend  themselves  to  his  individual 
taste  or  judgment.  These  are  usually  such  pronun- 
ciations as  he  is  accustomed  to  hear  or  himself  to  use. 
These  are  published  with  the  stamp  of  the  lexicogra- 
pher's authority  and  approval,  and  the  dictionary  is 
sent  out  into  the  world  as  so-and-so's  record  of  the 
most  approved  usage. 

This  was  doubtless  the  way  pronouncing  diction- 
aries used  to  be  compiled.  But  we  may  believe  that 
this  method  is  not  the  course  ordinarily  followed  by 
the  authors  of  our  best  modern  dictionaries.  If  our 
best  standard  dictionaries  to-day  were  made  in  this 
fashion,  their  authority  would  richly  deserve  to  be 


in  2Dut  OEngifeft  Speecfi  57 

heavily  discounted  for  such  carelessness  of  method. 
But  greater  efforts  are  made  by  the  most  recent  or- 
thoepists,  we  may  believe,  to  determine  the  accepted 
usage  in  polite  society.  Yet,  after  all,  the  personal 
equation  enters  as  an  important  factor  into  the  com- 
pilation of  every  pronouncing  dictionary.  The 
author  or  authors  who  compile  the  dictionary  natu- 
rally follow  their  own  preferences  and  prejudices  in 
the  matter  of  pronunciation;  and  their  results,  even 
at  best,  repose  on  very  restricted  and  imperfect  ob- 
servation. An  orthoepist  ought  not  to  be  cocksure 
and  dogmatic.  Indeed,  the  proper  attitude  of  the 
author  of  a  dictionary  is  that  of  the  late  Mr.  Ellis. 
It  was  quite  natural  that  a  man  of  his  superior  schol- 
arship and  rare  orthoepical  attainments  should  have 
been  frequently  asked  as  to  the  proper  pronunciation 
of  a  particular  word. 

"It  has  not  unfrequently  happened,"  observes  Mr. 
Ellis  in  his  monumental  work  on  "Early  English 
Pronunciation,"  in  reference  to  his  practice,  when 
appealed  to  as  an  authority,  "It  has  not  unfrequently 
happened  that  the  present  writer  has  been  appealed 
to  respecting  the  pronunciation  of  a  word.  He  gen- 
erally replies  that  he  is  accustomed  to  pronounce  it  in 
such  or  such  a  way,  and  has  often  to  add  that  he  has 
heard  others  pronounce  it  differently,  but  that  he  has 
no  means  of  deciding  which  pronunciation  ought  to 
be  adopted,  or  even  of  saying  which  is  the  more  cus- 
tomary." 

This  attitude  will,  no  doubt,  commend  itself  to 
the  favor  of  the  reflecting  and  judicious  man  much 
more  forcibly  than  that  spirit  of  assumed  infalli- 


58  €tue0tiort$  at  300tte 

bility  which  is  a  sure  sign,  in  an  orthoepist,  of  in- 
sufficient knowledge  and  lack  of  preparation  for  his 
work.  The  business  of  a  lexicographer  is  to  record 
what  good  usage  authorizes,  not  to  tell  us  what  we 
shall  not  use.  The  orthoepist  who  goes  farther,  and 
dogmatically  asserts  that  a  given  pronunciation  is 
correct  and  another  incorrect,  transcends  the  legiti- 
mate bounds  of  his  province.  Moreover,  he  arouses 
suspicion  in  the  minds  of  the  thoughtful  as  to  his 
trustworthiness  as  a  guide  in  matters  of  pronuncia- 
tion. For  no  orthoepist  records  all  the  pronuncia- 
tions sanctioned  by  good  usage,  and  no  one  therefore 
can  affirm  positively  that  a  given  pronunciation  of  a 
word  may  not  be  warranted  by  reputable  usage  in 
some  quarter.  Even  so  high  an  authority  and  care- 
ful an  observer  as  Ellis  lapsed  into  error  in  his  com- 
ment upon  the  pronunciation  of  trait,  claiming  that 
the  silent  final  t  was  an  unfailing  shibboleth  of  Brit- 
ish practice.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  final  letter  of  trait,  as  Professor  Louns- 
bury  has  clearly  shown,*  had  been  recognized  by  Eng- 
lish orthoepists  as  allowable  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury. It  is  manifest  that  one  can  not  afford  to  be 
very  positive  in  English  orthoepy :  if  he  is,  he  will  be 
compelled  either  to  retract  or  to  qualify  some  of  his 
sweeping  statements. 

The  pronouncing  dictionary  is,  as  a  general  rule,  a 
good  guide  to  standard  usage,  though  it  can  not  be 
relied  upon  implicitly.  When  the  orthoepists  are  all 
agreed  upon  a  particular  pronunciation,  one  ought  to 

"The  Standard  of  Pronunciation  in  English,  p.  230. 


in  2Dur  OEnglisi)  Speecfi  59 


be  very  chary  of  using  one's  customary  or  pet  pro- 
nunciation that  differs.  The  chances  are  that  it  is 
not  in  good  repute.  But  when,  on  the  contrary,  the 
orthoepists  themselves  differ,  one  may  reasonably 
infer  that  no  statement  of  any  one  of  them  about  the 
proper  pronunciation  of  a  word,  however  positive  it 
may  be,  ought  to  be  recognized  as  a  binding  authority. 
For  no  pronouncing  dictionary  is  an  absolutely  final 
authority.  Nor  can  it  ever  justly  claim  to  be,  since 
the  pronouncing  dictionary  purports  to  record  only 
such  pronunciations  as  are  sanctioned  by  good  usage, 
and  good  usage  ever  varies  with  the  living  speech, 
which,  like  all  living  things,  is  always  slowly  chang- 
ing from  century  to  century.  The  change  is  some- 
times so  gradual  that  hardly  the  lapse  of  a  century 
will  reveal  it.  Again,  for  one  reason  or  another,  it  is 
so  rapid  in  development  that  even  a  generation  suf- 
fices to  record  it. 


at 


VULGAKISMS  WITH  A  PEDIGKEE. 

Never  before  was  there  so  much  enthusiasm  man- 
ifested in  linguistic  studies  as  during  the  last  quar- 
ter of  a  century,  and  even  yet  there  is  no  indica- 
tion of  a  waning  interest.  Not  only  have  languages 
been  studied  in  their  relation  to  one  another,  but  dia- 
lects also  have  come  in  for  their  share  of  attention  in 
the  pursuit  of  these  studies.  Nor  has  our  own  coun- 
try been  backward  in  contributing,  through  its  dia- 
lectal and  various  philological  associations,  its  quota 
to  the  science  of  philology.  Authors  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  have  written  long  and  (it  must 
be  confessed,  sometimes)  tedious  stories  in  the  indi- 
vidual dialects  of  their  respective  localities.  There 
are  books  in  the  dialect  of  the  negro,  as,  for  exam- 
ple, Thomas  Nelson  Page's,  to  mention  only  one 
writer  of  a  large  class,  those  in  the  dialect  of  the 
Tennessee  mountains,  as,  for  example,  Miss  Mur- 
fee's  books,  those  in  the  dialect  of  the  "Georgia 
cracker,"  as  the  stories  of  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  and 
a  host  of  others  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  These 
books  are  almost  like  the  sands  of  the  seashore  for 
number. 

So  numerous  and  varied  are  the  local  dialects  in 
this  country  that  a  contributor  to  the  North  Ameri- 


in  ©ut  OEngH0f)  ^peecf)  61 


can  Review,  some  few  years  ago,  ventured  the  thesis 
that  from  the  very  nature  of  the  diverse  and  varied 
character  of  our  local  dialects,  there  can  not  be  any 
such  thing  as  a  great  national  novel  in  the  United 
States.  While  this,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  a  some- 
what extreme  view,  to  which  many  do  not  feel  pre- 
pared to  subscribe,  the  fact  yet  remains  that  there 
are  marked  dialectal  peculiarities  in  the  spoken 
language  of  certain  localities.  These  dialectal  pe- 
culiarities, however,  are  fast  disappearing  before  the 
onward  march  of  the  unifying  influence  of  educa- 
tion, the  printing  press,  and  the  railroad.  When 
the  leavening  power  of  education  has  permeated  the 
entire  population  of  the  country,  there  will  result 
uniformity  of  speech,  and  dialectal  variations  from 
the  common  norm  will  linger  but  as  a  tradition. 

The  dialect  authors,  in  the  meantime,  are  doing 
the  reading  public  a  service  in  furnishing  it  with 
entertaining  stories  of  an  elevating  character.  More- 
over, some  of  them  at  least,  as  for  example,  Page, 
Harris  and  others,  are  rendering  literature  and  sci- 
ence an  ulterior  service,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
in  preserving  in  their  books  types  of  a  people  and 
their  speech  which  a  wave  of  oblivion  is  rapidly 
sweeping  away. 

If  one  will  examine  the  speech  of  the  negro  and 
the  native-born  illiterate  white,  it  matters  not 
whether  the  latter  be  from  New  England,  or  from 
the  South,  one  will  find  that,  excepting  certain  pro- 
vincialisms peculiar  to  their  respective  homes,  their 
language  has  much  in  common,  and  to  the  student 
of  historic  English,  it  exhibits  indisputable  evidence 


62  fXite0tion0  at 

of  its  affinity  with  the  English  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  This  is  obvious  from  such  words  as  hand- 
kercher,  ar  (air),  pint  (point),  pison  (poison), 
gwine  (going),  arrant  (errand),  cratur  (creature), 
arth  (earth),  all  of  which  are  common  alike  to  the 
"Yankee  dialect"  and  to  the  negro  dialect.  The 
student  who  is  familiar  with  the  development  of  the 
English  tongue  will  at  once  recognize  these  as  stand- 
ard, according  to  the  received  pronunciation  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  But  in  the  development  of  the 
language,  these  pronunciations  subsequently  fell  into 
disuse  and  were  discarded  by  standard  English. 
They  still  survived,  however,  in  the  lower  stratum  of 
society  among  the  poor  and  illiterate  who,  denied  the 
privileges  and  advantages  of  an  education  and  there- 
fore ignorant  of  the  most  elementary  principles  of 
grammar,  inherited  this  speech  from  their  ances- 
tors and  handed  it  down,  with  but  little  change,  from 
generation  to  generation  to  their  children. 

The  language  of  the  seventeenth  century  was 
brought  to  America  by  the  early  settlers  and  was 
taught  the  slaves,  and  the  tongue  which  the  illiterate 
negroes  then  learned  to  speak  they  have  preserved, 
without  any  material  change,  down  to  the  present 
generation.  Since  this  is  the  case,  we  can  not  then 
be  surprised  to  find  upon  examination  that  many 
of  their  dialectal  pronunciations  and  locutions  are 
to  be  traced  back  to  classic  authors  of  an  earlier 
period,  yea,  to  Shakespeare  himself.  In  this  sense 
it  is  doubtless  true  that  many  of  the  fossilized  pro- 
nunciations of  our  illiterates  are  much  nearer  the 
language  of,  and  would  therefore  be  more  intelligible 


fn  2Dur  <ZBnsli0&  @>peec&  63 

to,  Shakespeare  and  Milton  than  present  standard 
English. 

Every  one  who  has  ever  heard  the  old  negro 
preacher  giving  an  "exhortation"  at  the  close  of  his 
fervid  "sarmon"  knows  very  well  that,  though  the 
old  man's  heart  was  perhaps  right  and  himself  on 
the  way  to  the  kingdom,  his  conscience  never  for  a 
moment  troubled  him  about  his  loose  grammar. 
Notwithstanding  his  sanctification  and  his  ecstatic 
anticipation  of  the  joys  of  the  kingdom  for  which  he 
was  bound,  he  had  no  conscientious  scruples  about 
"axin7  "  his  "ole  marster"  if  the  latter  was  at  all 
tardy  in  offering  him  the  desired  help.  Perhaps 
many  of  those  who  were  so  familiar  with  the  lingo 
of  the  old  preacher  never  reflected  that  his  language, 
like  his  heart,  was,  after  all,  not  very  far  wrong  and 
entirely  without  precedent  when  he  "axed"  for 
something.  He  was  but  obeying  the  scriptural  in- 
junction, which,  according  to  Tyndale's  version, 
reads:  "Axe  and  it  shall  be  geven  you."  lN~or  do 
they  know  that  he  was  following,  all  unwittingly,  to 
be  sure,  the  example  set  by  the  first  English  printer, 
Caxton,  who,  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  of  Vergil's 
Aeneid,  used  precisely  the  same  expression.  If  then 
the  old  parson  blundered,  as,  according  to  our  mod- 
ern standard,  he  did,  he  at  all  events  blundered  in 
good  company. 

In  Chaucer,  "the  first  finder  of  our  faire  lan- 
guage," as  his  ardent  disciple  Occleve  rapturously, 
though  quaintly,  called  him,  we  find  the  same  word. 
Here  we  find  also  forms  long  since  fossilized,  though 
still  preserved  in  the  speech  of  the  untutored,  such 


'64  €lue0tion0  at 

as  "kiver,  driv,  holp,  wrii,  rid,  etc.  In  "Much  Ado 
About  Nothing"  Dogberry,  albeit  he  dislocates  the 
dictionary  in  speaking  of  that  villain  who,  he  prophe- 
sies, would  be  condemned  to  everlasting  redemption, 
yet  uses  grammar  which,  for  his  day,  was  above  re-' 
proach,  when  he  exclaimed:  "O  that  I  had  been 
writ  down  an  ass  I" 

So  we  must  acknowledge  that  no  violence  was  done 
to  the  language,  however  our  sense  of  propriety  may 
be  shocked,  when  a  century  or  so  ago  a  Londoner  re- 
marked to  his  friend  who  had  come  up  from  his 
home  in  the  country  to  see  the  play  of  "Orpheus  and 
Eurydice,"  and  who  was  copiously  bespattered  with 
mud,  as  a  result  of  his  ride :  "You  came  up  to  town, 
I  suppose,  to  see  Orpheus  and  you  rid  I  see"  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  literature  of  that 
period  a  more  felicitous  illustration  of  a  perfectly 
legitimate  play  on  words  which  the  contemporary 
pronunciation  permitted. 

Shakespeare,  who  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
to  make  a  pun  whenever  opportunity  offered,  fur- 
nishes additional  evidence  of  his  versatility  and  in- 
genuity in  his  apt  recognition  of  the  obsolete  pro- 
nunciation of  many  words  of  his  time,  which  he 
turned  to  good  account.  Hence  so  many  of  his  witti- 
cisms. In  "Henry  IV,"  for  instance,  Falstall  says: 
"If  reasons  were  a  plentiful  as  blackberries,  I  would 
give  no  man  a  reason  upon  compulsion,"  thus  play- 
ing upon  the  old  pronunciation  of  raisins  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar  upon  the  lips  of  the  unlettered. 
Thus  he  plays  upon  the  antiquated  pronunciation  of 
as  room,  when,  in  "Julius  Caesar,"  Cassius 


in  Dut  <ZEtt0li0!)  ©peecfc  65 

says  of  Caesar's  vaulting  ambition  which  o'erleaped 
itself: 

"Now  is  it  Rome  indeed  and  Roome  enough, 
When  there  is  in  it  but  one  only  man." 


.- 
One  of  the  conundrums  of  that  period,  which,  by 

the  way,  could  only  have  belonged  to  that  period, 
illustrates  the  antiquated  pronunciation  of  chair  as 
cheer,  still  current  among  the  illiterate.  "Why  is  a 
stout  man  always  happy?"  The  answer  was,  "Be- 
cause he  is  cheerful  (chair  full)." 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  random  illustrations.  We 
owe  a  lasting  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  philologists 
who  have  labored  in  this  field  and  illuminated  this 
subject  which  before  was  enveloped  with  almost  Cim- 
merian darkness.  These  amenities  of  philology 
which  have  been  mentioned  above  are  but  an  inci- 
dent of  the  arduous  and  laborious  pursuits  of  those 
philologists.  Let  us  consider  for  a  while  some  of 
the  results  of  their  research  which  prove  how  the 
English  language  has  changed. 

Every  student  who  has  given  any  attention  to  the 
historical  development  of  our  speech  knows  that  it 
has  changed  from  age  to  age  no  less  in  form  than  in 
pronunciation.  Indeed,  it  could  not  be  a  living 
tongue  if  it  did  not  constantly  change.  The  oldest 
form  of  the  language  which  we  call  Anglo-Saxon 
gradually  changed  in  form  and  sound  till  Middle 
English  times,  and  then  it  continued  to  change  even 
more  rapidly  till  modern  times.  It  has  undergone 
no  small  change  even  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth, 


66  £Xue0tion$  at 

when  our  great  dramatists  spoke  and  wrote  it.  So 
great  are  these  changes  through  which  our  vernacular 
has  passed  that  a  modern  could  not  converse  with  one 
of  his  Saxon  forebears  of  the  time  of  the  good  and 
great  King  Alfred  except  throi]gh  an  interpreter  of 
his  own  mother-tongue.  If  any  man  is  skeptical  on 
this  point,  let  him  test  himself  by  trying  to  mod- 
ernize offhand  a  passage  from  one  of  Alfred's  own 
works.  Indeed,  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  so  far  back. 
For  Shakespeare,  not  to  mention  Chaucer,  may  prove 
a  rock  of  offence  and  would  no  doubt  appear  to  most 
of  us  to  speak  in  an  unknown  tongue,  could  we  hear 
him  speak.  Surely  the  commentators  find  no  end  of 
difficulties  in  interpreting  his  writings  which  have 
been  preserved  to  us.  Even  were  we  to  approach 
Shakespeare  from  the  vantage  ground  of  the  famous 
Tieck  and  Schlegel  translation  which  some  patriotic 
German  scholars  with  more  zeal  than  knowledge 
assert  is  better  than  the  original,  no  doubt,  we  should 
still  encounter  many  hard  sayings  in  the  master 
dramatist's  language.  Much  less  therefore  should 
we  be  able  to  understand  his  spoken  tongue,  since 
spoken  speech,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  changes 
far  more  than  written  language. 

However,  it  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  use  Shake- 
speare as  a  concrete  illustration  to  show  how  our 
speech  has  changed  even  in  the  last  few  centuries. 
We  have  chosen  two  other  authors  who  flourished 
long  after  the  voice  of  the  "sweet  swan  of  Avon" 
had  ceased  to  sing  and  his  bones  had  moulded  back  to 
dust  in  the  quaint  parish  church  of  Stratford.  These 
writers  are  the  distinguished  satirists,  the  vigorous 


in  flDut  CngIt0J)  ©peecj)  67 

Dryden  and  the  didactic  Pope.  Their  rhymes  are 
a  fairly  accurate  index  to  the  standard  contemporary 
pronunciation. 

Dryden  has  often  been  taxed  with  a  certain  laxity 
in  his  rhymes,  and  to  one  not  recognizing  the  differ- 
ence between  the  pronunciation  current  in  England 
in  the  seventeenth  century  and  that  accepted  at  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  the  criticism 
would  appear  to  be  well  founded.  But  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  sounds  of  the  English  vow- 
els, especially,  have  undergone  a  considerable  change 
since  Dryden's  day.  We  should  not  be  surprised 
then  if,  when  we  apply  the  present  standard  of  Eng- 
lish pronunciation  to  his  rhymes,  they  seem  some- 
what imperfect.  However,  this  is  not  intended  to 
extenuate  Dryden's  false  rhymes,  of  which  there 
are  confessedly  some;  for  he  had  neither  a  sensitive 
ear  nor  a  tender  conscience  in  his  work  for  the  stage. 
His  motto  expressed  in  his  own  words  was, 

"He  who  lives  to  please,  must  please  to  live." 

Yet  Dryden  was,  after  all,  no  greater  sinner  in  this 
respect  than  others  of  his  day,  or  even  of  the  present 
day,  whose  verses  furnish  such  monstrosities  as  has 
rhyming  with  was,  love  consorting  with  move, — 
rhymes  which  "keep  the  word  of  promise  to  the  eye 
and  break  it  to  the  ear."  Let  us  now  cite  a  few  of 
the  received  pronunciations  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury as  indicated  in  the  rhymes  of  that  day.  It  will 
be  observed  that  where  these  are  still  lingering  in 


£Xue0tiong  at 


our  speech  to-day,  they  are  regarded  simply  as  vul- 
garisms. 

Such  words  as  please,  these,  seize,  severe,  sea, 
speak,  complete,  and  the  like  were  pronounced,  in  the 
seventeenth  century  and  in  the  first  half  of  the  eigh- 
teenth, in  a  way  which,  to  the  modern  ear,  is  decid- 
edly suggestive  of  the  Irish  "brogue."  For  both 
Dryden  and  Pope  pronounced  these  words  plase, 
those,  saze,  savare,  say,  spake,  complate:  and  this 
was  the  received  pronunciation  during  that  period. 
Pope,  therefore,  whose  delicate  ear  was  easily  fasci- 
nated by  the  vigor  and  musical  cadence  of  his  mas- 
ter Dryden  preserves  but  the  aroma  of  the  old  tea,  in 
that  heroic  couplet  upon  a  mock  heroic  subject  : 

"Here  thou,  great  Anna  !  whom  three  realms  obey, 
Dost  sometimes  counsel  take  —  and  sometimes  tea." 

Likewise,  again  he  says  : 

"Soft  yielding  minds  to  water  glide  away, 
And  sip,  with  nymphs,  their  elemental  tea." 

Dryden  pertinently  asks,  in  his  Absalom  and 
Achitophel  : 

"But  when  should  people  strive  their  bonds  to  break, 
If  not  when  kings  are  negligent  or  weak  ?" 

So  Pope  likewise  pronounced  weak  rhyming  it  with 
take.  Both  he  and  Dryden  offer  numerous  exam- 
ples of  speak  rhyming  with  wake,  sphere  with  bear, 


in  2Dur  <2ngli0i)  Speech  69 

shear  with  care,  retreat  and  complete  with  great,  and 
£rea£  with  the  French  £e£e,  as  in  Pope's  imitation  of 
Horace : 

"The  smests  withdrawn  had  left  the  treat, 
'And  down  the  mice  sate,  tete-a-tete." 

In  the  Hind  and  the  Panther  Dryden  uses  the 
now  vulgar  pronunciation  of  clear  thus : 

"The  sense  is  intricate,  'tis  only  clear 
What  vowels  and  consonants  are  there." 

But  this  was  a  perfectly  faultless  rhyme  then  and 
was  sanctioned  by  the  best  usage.  So  the  vulgar 
pronunciation  of  key  is  the  only  open  sesame  to  this 
perfect  rhyme  in  Dryden' s  time : 

"  'Twere  pity  treason  at  his  door  to  lay, 

Who  makes  heaven's  gate  a  lock  to  its  own  key." 

Here  also  occurs  the  obsolete  pronunciation  of 
says  rhyming  with  days,  and  said  is  wedded  to  maid 
and  even  have  consorts  with  slave  and  wave,  all  of 
which  pronunciations  have  long  ago  been  repudiated 
by  standard  English  and  survive  now  only  in  the 
speech  of  the  rustics  and  upon  Irish  lips. 

The  story  is  told  of  an  old  Scotchman  who,  like 
some  others  not  of  Scotch  descent,  occasionally  draw 
their  inspiration  from  an  illicit  source  that  during 
a  spell  of  serious  illness  he  was  visited  by  the  good 
minister  who  pointed  out  to  him  his  weakness  and 


70  £Xue0tions  at 

endeavored  to  persuade  him  to  leave  off  his  bibulous 
habit.  When  the  minister  told  the  erring  Scotchman 
that  in  heaven  whither  he  was  going  there  would  be 
no  wine,  he  impulsively  exclaimed:  "I  dinna  ken, 
but  I  think  it  would  be  but  dacent  (decent)  to  have 
it  on  the  table."  This  is  precisely  the  way  Dry  den 
and  Pope  pronounced  the  word  decent,  and  the  pro- 
nunciation still  lingers  as  a  provincialism. 

Pope  rhymes  nature  with  satire  and  makes  Craggs 
exclaim  in  a  dialogue : 

"Alas,  if  I  am  such  a  creature 
To  grow  the  worse  for  growing  greater." 

This  rhyme  at  that  time  was  perfect  to  the  ear, 
though  false  to  the  eye.  Again,  Pope  wishes — 

"That  all  mankind  might  that  just  mean  observe, 
In  which  none  e'er  could  surfeit,  none  could  starve." 

As  for  the  atmosphere,  Pope  called  it  aarf  making 
the  word  rhyme  with  star,  and  are  and  were  he  pro- 
nounced occasionally  air  and  ware.  These  pronun- 
ciations, it  is  interesting  to  note,  are  still  heard  now 
and  then  from  the  lips  of  educated  men,  either  as 
an  affected  archaism  or  more  probably  from  sheer 
force  of  a  habit  of  utterance  acquired  in  youth. 

There  is  another  vulgarism  with  a  pedigree  which 
is  especially  to  be  noted  because  it  is  never  heard 
now  except  from  the  unlettered.  Yet  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  this  was  the  standard  pronunciation. 
.We  refer  to  the  obsolete  pronunciation  of  such  words 


in  2Dut  <ZBngH0lj  @>peec&  71 

as  oblige,  join,  poison  and  the  like.  In  his  Epistle 
to  Arbuthnot  in  which  Pope  pilloried  so  many  of  his 
contemporary  poetasters  and  there  left  them  to  the 
vulgar  gaze  of  all  subsequent  ages,  among  others  he 
damned  Addison  with  faint  praise  as — 

"Dreading  e'en  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged, 
And  so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged." 

Our  join,  poison,  point,  soil,  spoil,  and  so  on,  would 
have  offended  the  ear  of  Dryden  and  Pope,  who  in- 
variably said  jine,  pison,  pint,  etc.  In  this  respect 
the  speech  of  our  rustics  is  the  speech  which  Dryden 
and  Pope  spoke,  though  their  faith  and  morals  are 
probably  not  those  which  these  authors  held. 
In  the  words  of  Pope  himself : — 

"Waller  was  smooth,  but  Dryden  taught  to  join 
The  varying  sense,  the  full-resounding  line, 
The  long  majestic  march  and  energy  divine." 

"Good  nature  and  good  sense  must  ever  join ; 
To  err  is  human ;  to  forgive,  divine." 

"  ?T  is  not  enough,  taste,  judgment,  learning  join ; 

In  all  you  speak,  let  truth  and  candor  shine."     „ . 

/' 
"In  grave  Quintilian's  copious  work  we  find 

The  justest  rules  and  clearest  method  join'd." 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  we  still  say  choir. 
These  words  with  the  en-diphthong  are  well-nigh  all 


72  dilutions  at  300tte 

of  Anglo-French  origin,  except  boil,  in  the  sense  of 
tumor,  where  the  Anglo-Saxon  byle  proves  that  its 
development  into  the  now  vulgar  bile  is  regular. 
But  in  standard  English  the  word  has  been  wrested 
from  its  normal  course  of  development,  probably 
through  association  in  the  popular  mind  with  the 
verb  boil,  or  to  avoid  confusion  with  bile  (secretion 
of  the  liver),  and  its  spelling  has  been  changed  to 
boil  to  satisfy,  in  Lowell's  apt  phrase,  the  logic  of 
the  eye.  But  let  it  be  said  parenthetically  that  logic 
is  among  the  least  potent  factors  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  language. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  then,  we  appreciate 
more  fully  the  significance  of  the  words  of  Ellis,  in 
his  monumental  work  on  Early  English  Pronuncia- 
tion :  "For  the  polite  sounds  of  a  past  generation  are 
the  betes  noires  of  the  present.  Who  at  present,  with 
any  claim  to  "eddication"  would  jine  in  praising  the 
pints  of  a  picter?  But  certainly  there  was  a  time 
when  education,  join,  points  and  picture  would  have 
sounded  equally  strange." 

In  the  Yankee  dialect,  as  we  learn  from  Lowell's 
admirable  essay  on  this  theme  in  the  introduction  to 
his  Biglow  Papers,  "the  u  in  the  ending  ture  is  al- 
ways shortened,  making  ventur,  natur,  pictur,  and 
so  on.  This  was  common  also  among  the  educated 
of  the  last  generation.  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  may 
have  been  once  universal,  and  I  certainly  think  it 
more  elegant  than  the  vile  vencher,  nayclier,  pick- 
cher,  that  have  taken  its  place,  sounding  like  the  in- 
vention of  a  lexicographer  to  mitigate  a  sneeze.7' 
When  Lowell  wrote  these  words,  very  little  atten- 


in  flDur  dEngltsft  Speed)  73 

tion  had  been  given  to  the  study  of  dialects  and  their 
significance  as  exhibiting  fossilized  forms  of  a  lan- 
guage. But  since  the  publication  of  Ellis's  excellent 
work  on  the  early  pronunication  of  our  mother- 
tongue,  a  flood  of  light  has  been  shed  upon  the  tortu- 
ous path  of  the  history  of  English  sounds.  Thus 
we  can  be  sure  that  the  speech  of  our  illiterates, 
however  vulgar  and  antiquated  it  may  sound  to  our 
twentieth  century  ears,  is,  at  least  in  many  instances, 
the  polite  pronunciation  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
It  is  the  English  which  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  brought 
over  with  them  when  they  landed  on  the  shores  of 
the  New  World. 

So  much  for  the  dialect  of  our  illiterates,  the 
lingua  rustled.  Let  us  now  consider  the  Irish  dia- 
lect which  is  another  fruitful  source  of  vulgarisms 
with  a  pedigree.  A  moment's  reflection  will  suffice 
to  convince  the  reader  that  this  speech  is  very  closely 
allied  in  origin  with  the  English  brought  to  Amer- 
ica by  the  early  settlers. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  English  language,  as 
spoken  by  the  Irish,  has  a  peculiarity  of  utterance 
commonly  called  "the  Irish  brogue"  and  differs  ma- 
terially from  standard  English.  Why  this  clearly 
marked  and  distinctive  mode  of  utterance  which  dif- 
ferentiates the  English  speech  on  Irish  lips  from 
the  same  language  as  spoken  in  England  and  Amer- 
ica ?  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  English  spoken  by  the 
educated  sons  of  Erin  is  the  same  as  that  used  in 
England  and  America.  But  the  language  of  the 
Irish  in  the  rural  districts  of  Ireland  and  of  those 
who  have  emigrated  to  America  is  something  quite 


74  duesticms  at  3J00ue 

different,  and  varies  considerably  in  idiom  and  pro- 
nunciation from  standard  English.  It  is  this  which 
is  usually  termed  "the  Irish  brogue." 

To  get  at  the  origin  of  this  lingo  we  must  go  back 
to  the  time  when  Ireland  was  settled  by  the  English. 
The  tongue  originally  spoken  in  Ireland  was  of 
course  the  Old  Irish,  or  Gaelic,  and  this  was  very 
closely  related  to  the  Welsh  and  the  speech  of  the 
ancient  Britons  who  resisted  the  Roman  invasion 
under  Julius  Caesar.  This  was  the  tongue  of  the 
whole  of  Britain  when  our  Saxon  forefathers  first 
found  their  way  across  the  Channel  from  Northern 
Germany.  This  therefore  was  the  vernacular  of 
King  Arthur  and  his  knights  of  the  Round  Table 
mentioned  in  the  Arthurian  legends. 

As  far  back  as  the  twelfth  century,  history  records 
that  the  English  began  to  plant  colonies  on  the  Emer- 
ald Isle  and  to  settle  parts  of  it,  such  as  Forth  and 
Bargay.  But  these  were  unimportant  from  our  pres- 
ent point  of  view.  The  English  settlements  in  Ire- 
land from  which  the  English  language  spread  and 
diffused  itself  over  the  country  were  those  made  in 
Ulster  and  the  north  during  the  reign  of  James  I, 
in  1611.  This  English  emigration  was  re-enforced 
by  the  invasion  of  Cromwell,  in  1649.  So  then  it 
was  during  the  seventeenth  century  that  the  domain 
of  the  Irishman's  native  tongue  was  invaded  by  the 
English  speech. 

It  will  be  recalled  that,  inasmuch  as  Ireland  was 
originally  populated  by  the  Celtic  race,  it  follows 
that  the  genuine  Irishman  is  really  a  Celt,  not  a 
Saxon,  although  he  now  speaks  English  as  his  ver- 


in  ffl)iit  4Engli0&  ©peecft  75 

nacular.  He  was  therefore  of  the  same  race  and 
blood  as  the  ancient  Britons  whom  our  Saxon  fore- 
fathers found  in  possession  of  the  country  when  they 
first  came  to  Britain  from  the  Continent.  The  Brit- 
ish people  represent  a  fusion  of  these  two  races — 
Celtic  and  Saxon — with  the  Saxon  element  predomi- 
nating. According  to  Matthew  Arnold's  dictum,  it 
is  from  the  Celtic  blood  flowing  in  the  veins  of  the 
Englishman  that  he  gets  his  sentiment.  In  his  com- 
posite being,  the  modern  Englishman  combines  with 
his  original  steady-going  Saxon  temperament  some- 
thing of  the  Celt's  instinct  for  sentiment,  love  of 
beauty,  charm  and  spirituality,  together  with  some- 
thing of  the  Norman's  tact  for  business.  According 
to  Matthew  Arnold,  therefore,  there  is  a  comming- 
ling of  these  three  streams  in  the  English  race,  the 
Celtic  and  the  Norman  both  being  merged  in  the 
Saxon.  As  the  defect  of  his  qualities  the  Celt  had 
ineffectualness  and  self-will, — qualities  which  still 
mark  the  Irish  genius.  The  words  of  that  eminent 
nineteenth  century  critic  are  very  suggestive  as  indi- 
cating the  influence  of  the  Celtic  spirit  upon  the 
Saxon,  whether  we  are  prepared  to  share  his  opinion 
or  not.  "If  I  were  asked,"  remarks  he  in  his  ad- 
mirable essay  On  the  Study  of  Celtic  Literature, 
"where  English  poetry  got  these  three  things — its 
turn  for  style,  its  turn  for  melancholy,  and  its  turn 
for  natural  magic,  for  catching  and  rendering  the 
charm  of  nature  in  a  wonderfully  near  and  vivid 
way — I  should  answer,  with  some  doubt,  that  it  got 
much  of  its  turn  for  style  from  a  Celtic  source;  with 
less  doubt,  that  it  got  much  of  its  melancholy  from 


76  £Xite0tions  at  300ue 

a  Celtic  source;  with  no  doubt  at  all,  that  from  a 
Celtic  source  it  got  nearly  all  of  its  magic." 

But  to  return  to  the  language  of  the  Irish.  When 
the  English  settlers  emigrated  to  Ulster,  they  car- 
ried with  them  the  English  speech  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  A  moment's  reflection  teaches  us  that  this 
was  the  pronunciation  of  the  days  of  Milton  and 
Dryden  which  was  transplanted  into  Ireland.  Now, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  English  of  that 
century  was  transferred  to  a  country  where  the  na- 
tive speech  and  method  of  utterance  were  entirely 
different  from  those  employed  in  England.  The 
effect  of  this  was  to  cause  some  modification  in  the 
transplanted  language  when  the  English  speech  came 
into  actual  contact  with  the  native  Irish  tongue  on 
Irish  soil.  When  English  was  diffused  over  Ire- 
land the  native  speech  of  which  differed  both  in  its 
body  of  sounds  and  in  its  distinctive  method  of  enun- 
ciation from  the  triumphant  language,  the  natives 
learned  to  speak  the  new  tongue  with  their  own  char- 
acteristic mode  of  utterance.  It  was  but  natural 
therefore  that  the  English  speech  should  undergo  a 
considerable  alteration  on  Irish  lips.  In  similar  cir- 
cumstances the  supplanted  tongue  always  produces  a 
greater  or  less  change  in  its  victorious  rival,  not  only 
in  form,  but  also  in  construction  and  idiom.  Witness 
here  the  triumph  of  Anglo-Saxon  over  the  Celtic  of 
the  native  Britons.  As  an  illustration  of  the  change 
in  idiom  take  this  example  of  "Pidgin-English," 
spoken  in  the  treaty  ports  of  China.  In  one  of  those 
ports,  an  enterprising  merchant  with  a  keen  relish 
for  the  English  shillings,  but  with  little  feeling  for 


in  2Dur  OBnglfefi  S>peecft  77 

the  English  tongue,  is  reputed  to  have  put  out  over  his 
shop  door  a  sign  with  this  legend:  "Groceries  for 
sale,  retail  and  whole- tail !"  An  illustration  of  the 
difference  in  mode  of  utterance  between  two  tongues 
is  furnished  by  the  German,  or  even  the  French, 
method  of  pronouncing  our  English  th-sound.  What 
inherent  difficulty  a  native  German  or  Frenchman, 
in  his  unstudied  utterance,  encounters  in  pronounc- 
ing such  simple  words  as  the,  then,  kith,  etc. !  On 
the  other  hand,  one  whose  vernacular  is  English  ex- 
periences as  great  embarrassment  in  pronouncing, 
without  studied  effort  and  practice,  the  German  ch- 
sound,  as  in  Bach,  Ich,  etc.,  or  the  characteristic 
French  u  sound  as  in  fut,  eut,  pu,  etc. 

When  therefore  the  Irish  began  to  learn  English 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  they  encountered  certain 
difficulties  peculiar  to  the  English  speech.  The 
dental  combinations  in  our  English  tongue  appear  to 
have  proved  a  stumbling  block  to  the  Irish  mode  of 
utterance,  and  hence  such  grotesque  pronunciations 
as  tthrash  for  thrash,  stthraitch  for  stretch,  8atthir- 
day  for  Saturday  and  scoundthrel  for  scoundrel.  In 
his  native  speech  the  Celt  trilled  his  r's,  and  noth- 
ing was  more  natural  then  than  that  he  should  do  the 
same  thing  when  he  began  to  speak  English.  So  to 
the  present  day  the  r  is  emphatically  trilled  on  Irish 
lips,  although  it  is  decidedly  un-English  to  trill  it. 
These  few  examples  will  serve  to  indicate  the  char- 
acter of  some  of  the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  which  the  Irishman  encountered  in  his 
effort  to  speak  it.  But  there  were  other  difficulties 


78  fXuefftfon*  at  300iie 

than  those  of  utterance  which  had  to  be  overcome  in 
mastering  the  spoken  tongue. 

Furthermore,  the  English  speech  on  Irish  soil  did 
not  develop  and  nourish  as  it  did  in  its  own  habitat 
in  England.  On  the  contrary,  it  always  remained  an 
exotic  and  it  never  kept  pace  in  its  growth  and  de- 
velopment with  the  language  on  English  soil.  If 
Ireland  had  been  first  depopulated  and  then  settled 
by  the  British,  the  variations  in  speech  would  have 
been  much  less  conspicuous,  even  had  they  existed 
at  all.  But  that  was  not  the  case.  Those  conditions 
came  much  nearer  being  fulfilled  here  in  America 
when  the  Puritans  and  Cavaliers  came  over  to  the 
New  World,  bringing  with  them  practically  the  same 
English  as  that  carried  into  the  Emerald  Isle.  For 
the  first  settlements  in  America  by  the  English  colon- 
ists correspond  in  point  of  time  to  those  made  in 
Ulster, — that  is,  the  early  seventeenth  century.  But 
the  English  language  in  America  was  not  contam- 
inated by  contact  with  the  Indian  language  and,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  geographical  names,  our 
speech  shows  almost  no  trace  of  Indian  influence. 
Consequently  the  English  speech  on  American  soil 
has  had  an  entirely  different  development  from  that 
which  it  had  on  Irish  soil,  although  it  is  a  trans- 
planted language  in  both  instances.  The  explanation 
is  found  entirely  in  the  difference  of  environment. 
However,  there  are  certain  fossilized  phrases,  pro- 
vincialisms, vulgarisms,  or  what  not,  in  American 
English,  which  betray  the  affinity  of  the  language  of 
the  early  settlers  of  America  with  that  of  the  early 
settlers  of  Ireland.  .Witness  here  the  coincidence  of 


in  SDut  <ZEngli0f)  ©peecft  79 

our  vulgar  chist  (chest),  ingine  (engine),  quavr 
(queer),  hade  (head),  afeard  (afraid),  weepin 
(weapon),  Tcag  (keg),  rassel  (wrestle),  arrant  (er- 
rand), deef  (deaf),  baste  (beast),  sarmin  (sermon), 
etc.,  with  the  Irish  pronunciation  of  these  words. 

There  is  one  marked  Hibernicism  which  has  now 
passed  far  beyond  the  Irish  dialect.  Probably  many 
of  those  from  whose  delicate  mouths  we  hear  it  so 
frequently  are  not  aware  of  its  Irish  origin.  Let  it 
be  said  by  way  of  parenthesis  that  the  writer  does 
not  intend  this  remark  as  an  impeachment  of  that 
charming  pronunciation  which  boasts  the  sanction  of 
those  arriving  at  their  conclusions  by  instinct  rather 
than  reason;  nor  is  the  remark  made  in  a  spirit  of 
stoical  indifference  to  refined  and  delicate  feelings 
like  that  of  Balthazar,  the  infatuated  chemist  in 
Balzac's  Search  for  the  Absolute.  When  the  beauti- 
ful eyes  of  his  devoted  wife  filled  with  tears  as  she 
pleaded  with  him  not  to  sacrifice  all  his  fortune  and 
even  herself  in  his  search  for  diamonds,  he  ruthlessly 
exclaimed :  "Tears !  I  have  decomposed  them ;  they 
contain  a  little  phosphate  of  lime,  chloride  of  sodium, 
mucin  and  water."  The  Hibernicism  in  question  is 
the  pronunciation  of  "gyirl,"  so  wide-spread  and 
carefully  cultivated  by  delicate  mouths  in  Virginia 
as  to  be  regarded  a  shibboleth  of  those  "to  the  man- 
ner born."  (It  is  of  course  the  prerogative  of  woman 
to  change  her  mind, — and  her  name,  too,  if  she  so 
elects.)  Other  examples  of  this  Hibernicism  are 
cyart,  cyarve,  scyar,  gyarden,  gyarlic,  gyuide,  cyow 
and  nyow,  which  last  approximates  a  feline  note  if 
uttered  in  a  falsetto.  The  Irish  pronunciation  of 


Questions  at  issue 


sure  extends  far  beyond  that  jargon  now.  Perhaps 
the  reader  has  heard  the  story  of  the  good  bishop's 
wife  who  twitted  her  husband  about  saying  shore  for 
sure,  and  who,  when  reminded  that  she  pronounced 
the  word  the  same  way,  indignantly  replied,  "Why, 
to  be  shore,  I  do  not  !" 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  what  has  been  said 
that  the  English  spoken  in  all  parts  of  Ireland  is 
uniform.  On  the  contrary,  it  differs  vastly  and 
varies  with  the  locality.  In  some  parts,  indeed, 
English  is  not  spoken  at  all.  But  where  it  is  spoken, 
it  bears  a  striking  resemblance,  as  has  been  pointed 
out,  to  the  English  of  the  times  of  Dryden  and  Pope, 
which  was  fossilized  by  emigration.  The  "brogue" 
itself  is  due  to  the  characteristic  Celtic  habit  of  ut- 
terance, and  consists  mostly  in  the  intonation,  "which 
appears,"  according  to  Murray,  "full  of  violent  ups 
and  downs,  or  rather  precipices  and  chasms  of  force 
and  pitch,  almost  disguising  the  sound  to  English 
ears." 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  not  a  few  of  the  expres- 
sions which  now  survive  only  as  provincialisms,  or 
vulgarisms,  in  the  speech  of  the  illiterate  were  once 
in  entire  accord  with  polite  usage.  Many  of  the 
locutions  heard  now  in  the  negro  dialect  can  boast 
really  an  aristocratic  pedigree  and,  several  genera- 
tions ago,  enjoyed  the  sanction  of  the  highest  or- 
thoepical  authority.  But  these  pronunciations, 
somehow,  drifted  out  of  the  main  current  of  stand- 
ard speech  and  at  present  appear  only  as  jetsain  and 
flotsam  in  the  back-water  of  our  English  tongue.  Yet 
they  serve  to  indicate  how  extensively  our  language 


fit  fl>ur  (Cngligf)  ®peec&  81 

has  been  altered  and  modified  even  in  modern  times, 
after  it  found  its  way  to  the  New  World.  The 
modifications  and  changes,  however,  both  in  idiom 
and  pronunciation,  would  have  taken  place,  even  if 
the  English  speech  had  never  been  transplanted  into 
foreign  territory.  Conclusive  proof  of  this  is  fur- 
nished by  a  comparison  of  present-day  British  Eng- 
lish with  the  English  of  two  centuries  ago  as  spoken 
in  the  mother  country ;  and  this,  though  not  explicitly 
stated,  is  implied  in  the  discussion  of  the  theme  in 
the  foregoing  paragraphs. 


82  £Xue0ttott0  at  300uc 


BEITICISMS  VEESUS  AMEEICANISMS. 

It  is  a  recognized  fact  that  there  is  a  considerable 
variation  in  the  English  language  as  spoken  "by  the 
two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  The 
English  people  differ  from  the  American  people  in 
the  use  of  our  common  speech  not  only  in  their  char- 
acteristic mode  of  pronunciation  and  orthography, 
but  they  also  differ  from  us  in  no  less  striking  a  man- 
ner in  the  use  of  certain  idioms  and  household 
phrases,  which  constitute  the  small  change  of  our 
every-day  speech.  This  difference  is  the  natural  out- 
growth of  the  separation  of  the  two  peoples  by  the 
estranging  ocean,  which  is  of  necessity  a  great  bar- 
rier to  complete  intercourse.  To  be  sure,  the  fact 
that  the  English  people  and  the  American  people 
have  distinct  national  entities  with  the  resulting  dif- 
ference, during  the  last  hundred  years,  of  national 
ideals  and  pursuits,  has  had  the  natural  and  inevita- 
ble effect  of  widening  the  breach  between  the  speech 
of  the  two  countries.  No  doubt  the  present  variation 
will  be  accentuated  more  and  more  as  the  years  go  by, 
and  the  language  of  Great  Britain  and  of  America, 
far  from  becoming  absolutely  identical  in  pronun- 
ciation and  idiom  with  the  flight  of  centuries,  will  go 
on  developing  with  an  ever-increasing  divergence 


in  €>ur  €ns!i0&  @peecf)  83 


from  the  common  standard.  If  this  be  true  —  and 
certainly  the  facts  as  to  the  present  tendency  seern  to 
warrant  such  a  conclusion  —  the  final  result  may  be 
the  unique  linguistic  phenomenon  of  two  separate 
and  distinct  tongues,  if  such  a  thing  be  not  an  im- 
possibility. 

Before  pointing  out  the  variations  of  our  American 
English  from  British  English,  it  may  be  interesting 
to  note  the  source  of  our  American  vernacular,  and 
the  contributing  causes  of  the  chief  variations  from 
the  authoritative  standard  of  the  mother  country. 

When  our  Saxon  forefathers  found  their  way  to 
the  shores  of  this  western  continent  and  here  estab- 
lished their  permanent  abode,  the  settlers  naturally 
brought  with  them  the  language  of  their  native 
country.  This  was,  of  course,  the  noble  tongue  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton.  Our  British  cousins  who 
criticize  our  English  so  freely  and  cast  reproach  upon 
it  as  if  it  were  a  mere  jargon,  a  barbarous  patois,  evi- 
dently lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  boasts  the  same 
high  pedigree  as  their  own  much-vaunted  Elizabethan 
speech.  When  the  English  language  was  first  trans- 
planted in  American  soil,  it  was  identical  in  orthog- 
raphy, orthoepy  and  idiom  with  the  speech  of  the 
mother  country.  But  the  transplanted  tongue,  hav- 
ing a  new  and  different  habitat,  began  at  once  to 
adapt  itself,  however  imperceptibly,  to  its  changed 
environ  and  new  conditions.  Nor  was  the  connection 
with  the  parent  stock  a  sufficiently  close  and  vital 
bond  of  union  to  prevent  the  English  speech  on 
American  lips  from  undergoing  at  least  some  slight 


84  €Hie0ttott0  at  3s0tte 

modification  in  the  course  of  time,  as  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  the  altered  conditions  in  the  new  world. 

It  is  a  well-established  linguistic  principle  that  a 
language  inevitably  undergoes  a  slight  change,  de- 
termined by  the  varying  conditions,  as  long  as  it  is 
spoken.  When  a  tongue  ceases  to  be  spoken,  then 
and  only  then  does  it  cease  to  change  and  become  a 
dead  language,  as,  for  instance,  Latin  and  Greek. 
This  fact  of  the  gradual  change  in  a  living  language 
is  demonstrated  through  the  difficulty  one  experiences 
in  understanding  the  English  of  Chaucer,  or  even  of 
Shakespeare,  for  the  matter  of  that,  although  he  is 
not  so  far  removed  from  the  present  age.  If  a  living 
tongue  underwent  no  alteration  with  the  lapse  of 
years,  then  why  should  not  Anglo-Saxon  be  as  readily 
intelligible  to  us  as  modern  English  ? 

Furthermore,  a  language  is  affected  in  its  develop- 
ment by  contact  with  a  foreign  tongue  and  by  outside 
influences,  such  as  the  climate.  The  first  of  these 
reasons  is  so  apparent  to  all  that  it  hardly  deserves 
comment.  But  not  so  the  second.  Yet  the  influence 
of  climate  on  a  living  language  is  very  fruitful  of 
change.  Ready  proof  of  this  is  furnished  in  our 
own  country  in  the  soft,  musical  utterance  of  the 
south  in  contrast  with  the  rather  shrill  and  forceful 
habits  of  enunciation  characteristic  of  the  north.  In 
Europe,  for  example,  the  vast  preponderance  of  the 
harsh,  guttural  character  of  the  German  tongue  offers 
a  glaring  contrast  to  the  smooth,  liquid  notes  of  the 
pure  Tuscan  speech.  This  is  the  reason  why  Italian 
appeals  so  strongly  to  music  lovers  and  to  all  who 
have  an  ear  trained  to  be  especially  sensitive  to  sound. 


fit  2Ditr  (English  8>peec&  85 


Now,  this  difference  between  German  and  Italian,  as 
respects  the  musical  character  of  the  two  languages, 
is  doubtless  to  be  explained  in  large  measure  as  the 
result  of  climate  conditions  extending  through  many 
long  centuries.  If  by  some  violent  political  upheaval 
the  Italians  were  transported  to  the  extreme  northern 
part  of  Europe,  it  is  altogether  probable  that  their 
speech  in  the  course  of  centuries  would  lose  much  of 
its  native  vocalic  development,  much  of  its  melody, 
and  become  harsh  and  strident,  somewhat  like  the 
Russian  language.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  the 
English  speech  on  American  soil  has  undergone  some 
slight  modification,  in  consequenec  of  climatic  influ- 
ence. Perhaps  this  explains  the  variation  of  the 
American  pronunciation  of  the  long  o-sound  as  in 
"stone"  and  abone"  from  the  British  norm.  But 
the  difference  in  climate  between  the  two  countries  is 
not  sufficiently  marked  to  produce  any  very  radical 
departure. 

A  striking  feature  of  the  English  speech  on  Amer- 
ican lips  is  the  leveling  of  the  long  a-sound  heard  in 
such  words  as  "past,"  "fast,"  "plant,"  "command," 
"dance,"  "path,"  etc.  This  could  hardly  be  the  re- 
sult of  climatic  influence,  however,  for  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  climate  has  had  the  effect  of  pro- 
ducing any  modification  in  the  pronunciation  of  such 
terms  in  any  part  of  America.  The  prevailing  pro- 
nunciation of  these  terms  is  the  same,  at  the  south 
and  at  the  north  alike.  Such  a  variation  must,  there- 
fore, be  inherent  in  the  natural  growth  of  the  Eng- 
lish language  on  American  soil.  For  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  just  as  the  English  speech,  as  any  other 


86  £Xue0tion0  at 

living  organism,  has  been  growing  and  developing 
during  the  centuries  in  England,  so,  likewise,  in 
America  it  has  been  growing  and  developing  during 
the  last  three  centuries,  but  not  necessarily  in  the 
same  manner.  Those  employing  the  language  in 
Great  Britain  and  in  the  United  States  are  no  longer 
a  homogeneous  people  with  the  same  national  ideals 
and  destiny.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  two  separate 
and  distinct  nations  with  different  forms  of  govern- 
ment and  with  different  aims  and  aspirations.  Add 
to  this  the  fact  that  the  nations  have  been  estranged 
by  political  differences  which  resulted  in  wars  and 
that  they  are  separated  by  the  physical  barrier  of  a 
vast  ocean.  In  the  face  of  these  obstacles  it  is  not  at 
all  surprising  that  the  English  speech  has  not  gone  on 
developing  pari  passu  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  wonder  is  that  the  present  variations  are  not 
really  greater  and  more  striking  than  they  are. 

Another  contributing  cause  of  variation  of  Ameri- 
can English  from  the  British  norm  must  not  be  over- 
looked, the  more  especially  as  it  has  proved  a  prolific 
factor.  In  our  new  country  some  conditions  of  life 
arose  which  were  totally  unlike  those  existing  in  the 
old  country.  Such  strange  conditions  called  impera- 
tively for  the  invention  of  new  names  and  thus  gave 
rise  to  the  employment  of  new  phrases  and  new  locu- 
tions. These  had  to  be  coined  immediately  for  the 
emergency.  Since  the  most  distinctive  traits  of  the 
American  are  initiative  and  wealth  of  resource,  no 
time  was  lost  in  making  such  additions  to  the  Eng- 
lish speech  as  seemed  to  supply  a  felt  need,  and  that, 
too,  without  any  special  reference  to  British  models 


in  2Dut  Cnglfgf)  ®peec6  87 

and  precedents.  Hence  a  large  class  of  terms  distinc- 
tively American  and  bearing  upon  their  face  the 
trade-mark  "made  in  America"  found  their  way  into 
the  English  vocabulary  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  British  precisians  and 
purists,  who  proceeded  forthwith  to  put  these  new 
coinages  under  the  ban  and  to  brand  them  with  the 
bend  sinister  of  "Americanism."  Of  this  class  are 
many  terms  indicating  mechanical  inventions  and 
appliances,  such  as  "elevator"  instead  of  the  British 
"lift,"  to  mention  only  a  single  example  of  a  long 
catalogue  of  useful  things  which  American  genius 
has  given  to  the  world.  Here  also  belong  numerous 
words  expressing  things  associated  with  modern 
transportation  and  rapid  transit,  such  as  "street-car," 
"railroad,"  etc. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  just  here  to  call  attention 
to  some  of  the  ordinary  terms  and  expressions  heard 
in  England  which  strike  an  American  as  being  quite 
odd  and  peculiar.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  good 
Britons  will  not  be  offended  if  we,  using  the  same 
license  as  themselves,  venture  to  call  such  expres- 
sions "Briticisms."  Let  it  be  distinctly  understood, 
however,  that  this  is  not  intended  as  an  opprobrious 
epithet,  but  only  to  signify  a  word  or  an  idiom  which 
is  peculiar  to  Great  Britain  and  not  familiar  in 
America.  Eor  surely  the  English  people  have  the 
right  to  employ  whatever  terms  they  may  choose 
both  in  their  colloquial  and  in  their  written  speech. 

If  an  American  in  London  wishes  to  use  a  lan- 
guage that  is  readily  understood,  when  he  goes  to  the 
ticket-office  he  must  call  it  the  booking  office  of  the 


88  fXuestions  at 

railway  station.  There  he  must  ask  the  clerk,  or 
rather  the  "clark,"  for  a  first  single  or  a  second  re- 
turn, instead  of  a  single  fare  (first-class)  and  a 
round  trip  (second  class).  He  must  then  have  his 
luggage  labeled,  not.  his  baggage  checked,  and,  hav- 
ing secured  his  brasses  or  labels,  not  his  checks,  he 
sees  his  box,  not  his  trunk,  put  in  the  proper  van  and 
then  takes  his  seat  in  the  carriage,  not  in  the  car. 
Before  the  train  starts  off,  the  guards  slam  the  doors 
of  the  carriages,  turning  the  handles,  and  at  the  con- 
ductor's whistle  the  engine-driver  starts  his  loco- 
motive-engine. The  points  all  being  set  for  a  clear 
track  ahead,  the  train  speeds  along  the  metals,  pass- 
ing perhaps  a  shunting-engine  about  the  station  and  a 
train  of  goods-vans. 

The  variation  of  British  from  American  usage  is 
not  more  noteworthy  in  railway  parlance  than  in 
other  circles.  If  an  American  goes  shopping  in  Lon- 
don, he  must  call  for  a  packet,  not  a  paper,  of  pins ; 
a  reel,  not  a  spool,  of  cotton.  If  he  desires  to  buy  a 
pair  of  shoes,  he  must  call  for  boots,  unless  he  wishes 
low  quarters  or  Oxford  ties;  if  a  pair  of  overshoes, 
he  must  ask  for  footholds  or  galoshes;  if  a  soft  felt 
hat,  he  must  ask  for  a  squash  hat,  or  if  he  prefers  a 
Derby,  he  must  ask  for  a  billy-cock  hat  or  a  bowler ; 
if  he  wishes  a  pad  of  paper,  he  should  request  a  block 
of  paper.  If  he  goes  to  a  restaurant,  he  indicates 
whether  he  desires  his  meat  underdone,  not  rare;  if 
he  wishes  corned  beef,  he  calls  for  silversides  of  beef ; 
if  beets,  he  calls  for  beetroot ;  if  chicken,  he  calls  for 
fowl ;  if  a  cereal  of  any  sort,  he  calls  for  corn ;  if  cold 
bread,  he  must  order  cut  bread;  and  if  he  desires 


fn  2Dut  Cnglfefc  Speecft  89 

pudding,  pie,  jam,  preserves  or  candy,  he  must  order 
sweets,  short  for  sweetmeats.  If -the  waiter  should 
fail  for  any  reason  to  give  him  a  napkin,  an  Ameri- 
can should  ask  for  a  serviette;  and  when  he  has  fin- 
ished his  repast,  he  is  handed  a  bill  which  he  may  pay 
with  his  cheque,  or,  if  he  prefers,  with  the  cash  from 
his  purse,  not  his  pocket-book. 

If  in  England  you  find  no  bowl  and  pitcher  in 
your  room,  you  are  expected,  as  previously  observed,* 
to  call  for  a  jug  and  basin,  since  there  a  pitcher 
means  only  a  little  jug  and  a  bowl  is  used  exclusively 
for  serving  food  in.  On  the  street,  instead  of  a  let- 
ter box  near  a  lamp  post,  you  see  a  pillar  box  near  a 
lamp  pillar,  and  you  perhaps  meet  a  person  pushing 
a  perambulator,  called  "pram"  for  short,  instead  of 
a  baby-carriage.  For  dry-goods  you  go  to  a  mercer's, 
where  you  will  find  white  calico  sold  for  muslin. 
For  cloth  you  go  to  a  draper's,  for  wooden  ware  to  a 
turnery,  for  hardware  to  an  ironmonger's,  for  milk, 
butter  and  eggs  to  a  cow-keeper's  or  a  dairy,  and  for 
fish,  game  and  poultry  to  a  fish  shop.  If  you  desire 
any  of  your  purchases  sent  to  your  address,  you  order 
them  sent  by  express-carrier,  carriage  paid. 

If  at  any  time  you  desire  the  services  of  a  scrub- 
woman to  clean  your  apartments,  you  send  for  a 
charwoman.  If  you  wish  to  have  some  furniture  up- 
holstered, you  request  the  upholder  to  undertake  the 
work  for  you.  If  you  need  the  services  of  a  doctor, 
you  call  in  a  medical  man.  You  must  be  careful  to 
address  surgeons  and  dentists  by  the  common  demo- 

*See  A  Question  of  Preference  in  English  Spelling. 


90  £Xue0ttcm0  at 

cratic  title  "mister,"  since  the  English  custom  does 
not  warrant  you  to  address  them  as  "doctor."  If 
you  are  well,  to  your  inquiring  friends  you  are  re- 
ported "fit,"  if  unwell,  "seedy,"  if  sick,  invariably 
"ill." 

To  an  American  ear  British  orthoepy  offers  quite 
as  noteworthy  surprises  as  the  idiomatic  diction  does. 
Of  course  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  theie  should  be 
more  or  less  marked  variations  in  the  matter  of 
habitual  utterance  of  certain  sounds,  especially  the 
long  o-  and  the  long  a-vowel,  as  in  "fast,"  "dance," 
"sha'n't,"  etc.,  which  are  at  striking  variance  with 
American  usage.  Indeed,  these  sounds  are  so  char- 
acteristic that,  like  the  English  custom  of  ending 
almost  every  sentence  with  a  question,  when  clearly 
natural  and  not  an  affectation,  they  serve  as  a  shib- 
boleth of  British  nativity.  But  notable  eccentricities 
are  to  be  observed  in  the  English  mode  of  pronunc- 
ing  many  proper  names  such  as  Derby,  pronounced 
"darby" ;  Berkeley,  pronounced  "barclay" ;  Mag- 
dalen, pronounced  "maudlin";  Cadogan,  pronounced 
"kerduggan";  Maryleboiie,  pronounced  "merry- 
bone";  Cholmondeley,  pronounced  "chumly";  Marl- 
borough,  pronounced  "mobrer";  Albany,  pronounced 
so  that  the  first  syllable  rhymes  with  Al-  in  Alfred, 
etc.  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  examples.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  there  is  a  large  class  of  these  words  the 
spelling  and  pronunciation  of  which  seem  to  an 
American  rather  curiously  divorced.  Certainly 
American  usage  offers  no  parallel  where  there  is  so 
complete  a  divorce  of  orthoepy  from  orthographv. 
American  usage  makes  for  phonetic  spelling  and 


in  2Dur  4Engli0l)  Speecft  91 

tends  to  make  the  conventional  pronunciation  and 
spelling  conform  somewhat,  at  least. 

Having  drawn  attention  to  a  few  Briticisms,  we 
are  now  prepared  to  discuss  some  of  our  American- 
isms which  seem  to  excite  in  the  pure  minds  of  the 
English  precisians  alternate  feelings  of  disgust  and 
indignation.  Let  it  be  premised,  however,  that  it  is 
not  proposed  to  include  ordinary  slang  in  the  pres- 
ent discussion.  It  must  be  admitted  that  too  much 
slang  is  employed  even  in  polite  circles,  not  to  men- 
tion the  speech  of  those  who  make  no  pretense  to  re- 
finement and  culture.  But  one  should  not  confuse 
vulgarisms  with  so-called  Americanisms,  just  as  one 
should  not  confuse  vulgarisms  with  legitimate  slang. 
The  discriminating  student  distinguishes  between 
ordinary  slang  and  legitimate  slang.  The  vulgar 
slang  of  the  street  is,  of  course,  to  be  universally  con- 
demned and  tabooed.  Legitimate  slang,  on  the  con- 
trary, performs  an  important  function  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  living  language.  It  is  not  to  be  inconsid- 
erately ostracized,  therefore,  and  put  under  the  ban 
as  the  chief  source  of  corruption  of  our  vernacular,  as 
certain  of  our  purists,  in  their  zeal  without  knowl- 
edge, tell  us  and  attempt  to  maintain.  It  is  idle  for 
them  in  their  self-appointed  role  of  guardian  of  the 
pristine  purity  of  the  English  tongue  to  endeavor  to 
defend  so  unsound  and  so  indefensible  a  thesis.  For 
legitimate  slang,  far  from  being  an  unmitigated  evil 
and  a  constant  menace  to  the  purity  and  propriety  of 
our  noble  tongue,  is  standard  English  in  the  making, 
is  idiom  in  the  nascent  state  before  it  has  attained  to 
the  dignity  of  correctness  of  usage.  To  change  the 


at 


figure,  legitimate  slang  is  the  recruiting  ground 
whence  come  the  new  and  untried  words  which  are 
to  take  the  place  in  the  vernacular,  of  the  archaic 
and  obsolete  words,  dropping  out  of  the  ranks.  But 
it  is  aside  from  the  main  purpose  of  this  chapter  to 
discuss  the  relation  of  slang  to  standard  usage  (cf. 
"What  is  slang?")  and  hence  this  only  in  passing. 

By  an  Americanism,  as  here  used,  is  meant  a 
word,  phrase,  or  idiom  of  the  English  tongue,  in  good 
standing,  which  has  originated  in  America  or  is  in 
use  only  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  It  will  be  seen, 
therefore,  that  all  mere  slang  expressions,  even 
though  they  be  of  American  origin,  are  barred  from 
the  present  consideration.  In  his  dictionary  of 
"Americanisms,"  Bartlett  gives  a  large  collection, 
many  of  which  the  above  limitation,  of  course,  ex- 
cludes. 

Of  reputed  Americanisms,  as  one  might  surmise, 
there  are  several  classes  to  be  distinguished,  without 
any  very  clearly  defined  line  of  demarcation  separat- 
ing them.  One  class  includes  a  large  number  of 
phrases  which  had  their  origin  in  England  and  were 
transported  thence  to  our  shores  by  the  first  settlers 
who  came  from  the  mother  country  and  established 
themselves  in  Virginia  and  Massachusetts.  In  the 
last  analysis  these  locutions  appear  to  be  transplanted 
British  provincialisms,  not  a  few  of  which  came  over 
in  the  Mayflower.  Some  of  our  British  critics  who 
are  not  as  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  English 
language  as  they  might  be  do  not  hesitate  to  deliver 
an  offhand  opinion,  pronouncing  an  apparent  neolo- 
gism an  Americanism,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 


in  Dur  4Bnglt0i)  ^pecci)  93 

expression  shows  a  good  English  pedigree  extending 
back  many  generations.  A  more  intimate  acquain- 
tance with  the  history  of  our  common  speech  would 
save  them  the  embarrassment  from  such  a  glaring 
blunder.  But  it  is  so  easy  to  fall  into  the  careless 
habit  of  branding  as  an  Americanism  an  unfamiliar 
idiom  or  a  phrase  that  is  rarely  heard  in  England. 
This  convenient  term  has  thus  become  in  England  a 
reproach,  inasmuch  as  a  certain  stigma,  somehow, 
attaches  to  it  in  the  British  mind.  But  for  all  that, 
like  charity,  it  covers  a  multitude  of  sins,  sins  of  keen 
prejudice,  no  less  than  of  crass  ignorance. 

Many  of  the  so-called  Americanisms  are  really 
survivals  of  Elizabethan  English  and  boast  a  Shake- 
spearean pedigree,  although  they  are  no  longer  heard 
in  the  country  of  that  consummate  master  of  our 
speech.*  Somehow,  they  seem  to  have  drifted  out  of 
the  main  current  of  British  English.  Perhaps  they 
have  been  caught  up  by  an  eddy  and  carried  into  one 
of  the  provinces  where  they  are  still  preserved,  as 
they  are  in  America,  fresh  and  vigorous.  A  mo- 
ment's reflection  will  show  that  we  Americans  come 
rightly  by  our  Elizabethan  English.  For  surely 
New  England,  Maryland  and  Virginia  were  settled 
by  those  who  spoke  the  tongue  of  Shakespeare,  even 
though  they  did  not  all  hold  the  faith  and  morals  of 
Milton.  Many  of  these  settlers — both  Puritan  and 
Cavalier — were  college-bred  men,  graduates  of  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge.  Therefore  they  inherited  the 
best  traditions  of  the  English  speech  and  transmitted 

*See  Vulgarisms  With  A  Pedigree. 


94  £Xue0tion$  at  300ite 

it  uncorrupted  to  their  children.  Nor  were  their  chil- 
dren wilful  traducers  and  corruptors  of  the  King's 
English,  but  contrariwise  they  conserved  it  and  safe- 
guarded its  purity  quite  as  sedulously  as  the  in- 
habitants of  the  mother  country.  Thus  the  English 
speech  was  handed  down,  undefiled,  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  in  America.  Hence  some  words  and 
phrases  of  good  Elizabethan  usage  have  been  pre- 
served in  America,  which  long  ago  became  obsolete 
and  dropped  out  of  the  living  speech  in  England, 
where  the  growth  of  the  language  was,  of  course,  not 
arrested  by  the  rude  shock  incident  to  its  being  trans- 
planted in  a  foreign  country. 

Let  us  now  point  out  a  few  examples  of  reputed 
Americanisms,  social  pariahs  which  have  lost  caste 
and  no  longer  move  in  polite  circles  in  England.  An 
interesting  example  is  found  in  the  word  "fall"  used 
in  the  sense  of  autumn.  Both  these  terms  are  in  favor 
in  America,  although  the  pedants,  following  the  lead 
of  British  critics,  proscribe  the  use  of  "fall."  We 
are  told  it  is  not  employed  in  standard  English,  and 
hence  must  be  censured  as  provincial.  Yet  "fall," 
which  enjoys  a  certain  poetic  association  with  the  fall 
of  the  leaf,  can  offer  in  its  support  the  high  authority 
of  Dryden,  who  employed  it  in  his  translation  of 
Juvenal's  satires: 

What  crowds  of  patients  the  town  doctor  kills, 
Or  how  last  fall  he  raised  the  weekly  bills. 

In  his  "Northern  Farmer,"  Tennyson  used  the 
offending  word,  but  of  course  under  the  cloak  of  a 


in  2Dur  <2ngH0f)  ©peecf)  95 

provincialism.  Still  Freeman  did  not  deign  to  em- 
ploy it.  Commenting  on  it,  he  remarks :  "If  fall  as 
a  season  of  the  year  has  gone  out  of  use  in  Britain,  it 
has  gone  out  very  lately.  At  least  I  remember  per- 
fectly well  the  phrase  of  'spring  and  falP  in  my 
childhood." 

Another  good  illustration  of  a  word  still  surviving 
in  American  usage,  but  long  ago  discarded  in  Eng- 
land, is  "sick"  in  the  sense  of  ill.  British  usage 
restricts  the  meaning  to  nausea,  employing  ill  to  de- 
scribe a  man  suffering  with  a  disease  of  whatever 
sort.  Yet  "sick"  is  supported  by  the  very  best  liter- 
ary authority.  The  term  occurs  again  and  again  in 
Elizabethan  literature.  Reference  to  Bartlett's  con- 
cordance will  convince  even  the  most  skeptical  that 
the  word  abounds  in  Shakespeare,  and  that,  too,  in 
passages  where  the  correct  interpretation  leaves  no 
doubt  that  "ill"  is  meant.  Suffice  it  to  cite  only  an 
example  or  two:  In  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream" 
(act  1,  scene  1),  Shakespeare  makes  Helena  say, 
"Sickness  is  catching" ;  again  in  "Cymbeline"  (act 
5,  scene  4),  we  read,  "Yet  am  I  better  than  one  that's 
sick  of  the  gout";  and  in  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  (act 
5,  scene  2),  we  read,  "Here  in  this  city  visiting  the 
sick."  Not  only  so.  "Sick,"  in  the  American  ac- 
ceptation, has  an  unbroken  line  of  the  best  literary 
authority  from  Chaucer,  "that  well  of  English  unde- 
filed,"  down  to  Doctor  Johnson,  whose  dictionary  de- 
fines the  word  in  reference  to  a  person  afflicted  with 
disease.  American  usage,  furthermore,  is  supported 
by  the  King  James  version,  in  which  "ill"  is  nowhere 
found,  and  also  by  the  Anglican  Church  ritual.  It  is 


96  €iue0tion0  at 

needless  to  multiply  citations.  If  Americans  sin  in 
the  improper  use  of  "sick,"  it  may  be  urged  in  ex- 
tenuation that  they  can  at  least  plead  a  long  array  of 
illustrious  and  unimpeachable  authority  and  are  in 
good  company. 

The  use  of  "well"  as  an  interjection  is  mentioned 
by  Bartlett  in  his  dictionary  as  one  of  "the  most 
marked  peculiarities  of  American  speech."  More- 
over, he  adds,  "Englishmen  have  told  me  that  they 
could  always  detect  an  American  by  the  use  of  this 
word."  If  this  is  an  infallible  hall-mark  of  Amer- 
ican speech,  then  American  English  is  nearer  the 
tongue  of  Shakespeare  than  British  English  of  the 
present  day.  For  the  word  "well"  in  the  sense  of 
an  interjection  occurs  again  and  again  in  Shake- 
speare. In  "Hamlet"  (act  1,  scene  1),  Bernardo 
asks,  "Have  you  had  a  quiet  guard  ?"  Francisco  re- 
plies, "Not  a  mouse  stirring."  Whereupon  Ber- 
nardo adds,  "Well,  good-night."  Again  in  "Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream"  (act  3,  scene  1)  : 

Bottom.  And  then  indeed  let  him  name  his  name, 
and  tell  them  plainly  he  is  Snug  the  joiner. 

Quince.    Well,  it  shall  be  so. 

In  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "Captain"  (act  3, 
scene  3),  we  find  an  excellent  example  in  the  line, 
"Well,  I  shall  live  to  see  your  husbands  beat  you." 
"No  one,  of  course,  would  think  of  charging  Tenny- 
son with  using  unidiomatic  English.  Yet,  in  "Locks- 
ley  Hall,"  you  read: 

"Well— >t  is  well  that  I  should  bluster." 


in  2Dut  Cttglfeft  ©peecfi  97 

Surely  it  is  superfluous  to  cite  further  examples  from 
English  authors  showing  that  American  usage  in  the 
case  of  "well"  as  an  interjection  is  perfectly  good 
English,  even  if  the  locution  is  censured  by  British 
pedantry  and  never  heard  on  British  lips. 

The  trite  and  hard-worked  "guess,"  as  characteris- 
tic of  American  speech  as  the  much-abused  "fancy" 
is  of  British  speech,  furnishes  another  conspicuous 
example  of  a  reputable  word  in  Elizabethan  English 
which  has  become  obsolete  in  England,  but  is  still 
preserved  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  our  constant  employment  of  this  good  old 
Saxon  word  to  do  service  on  every  occasion  and  to 
express  every  shade  of  thought  from  mild  conjecture 
to  positive  assertion  is  somewhat  inelegant;  and  this 
circumstance  has  perhaps  contributed  to  bring  the 
overtaxed  phrase  into  disrepute  with  our  kin  across 
the  sea.  Yet  there  is  abundant  warrant  in  Eliza- 
bethan usage  for  the  familiar  notation  we  give 
"guess"  in  our  every-day  speech,  although  it  is  gen- 
erally confined  to  its  strict  meaning  of  conjecture  in 
that  period  of  the  language.  We  find  it  used  in  the 
familiar  sense  of  "think"  in  several  passages  in 
Shakespeare,  notably  in  "I.  Henry  VI."  (act  2, 
scene  1)  : 

Not  altogether ;  better  far,  I  guess, 

That  we  do  make  our  entrance  several  ways. 

Likewise,  in  "Measure  for  Measure"  (act  4,  scene 
4): 


OP  THE 
[\  UNIVERSITY 

OF 
^£1. 1  FOR! 


98  €Hie0tion0  at  Itestie 

Angela.  And  why  meet  him  at  the  gates  and  re- 
deliver  our  authorities  there  ? 

Escalus.    I  guess  not. 
So,  again,  in  the  "Winter's  Tale"  (act  4,  scene  3)  : 

Camilla.  Which,  I  do  guess,  you  do  not  purpose 
to  him. 

But  this  meaning  of  "guess"  is  common  through- 
out the  entire  history  of  English  literature,  for  the 
word  has  always  borne  the  sense  of  think,  cheek  by 
jowl  with  its  specific  meaning  of  conjecture.  It  is  so 
employed  by  Chaucer  and  Gower  in  early  times  and 
in  the  last  century  by  Sheridan  and  Wordsworth, 
certainly  good  literary  authority  enough.  How- 
ever, this  meaning  of  the  term  appears  to  have  died 
out  in  the  present-day  British  speech,  and  the  word 
is  there  employed  strictly  in  the  sense  of  conjecture, 
its  lost  sense  being  supplied  by  "fancy."  Now,  as 
between  the  Briton's  "fancy"  and  the  American's 
"guess,"  there  may  not  be  much  choice.  But  cer- 
tainly the  employment  of  "guess"  which  our  British 
cousins  claim  to  be  a  shibboleth  of  American  na- 
tionality does  not  indicate  any  misuse  of  our  mother 
tongue,  as  they  contend. 

Only  one  more  case  shall  be  adduced  in  illustra- 
tion, to  wit,  our  word  "baggage,"  which  the  other 
half  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  discarded  for  "lug- 
gage." Here  again,  as  elsewhere  in  the  exercise  of 
our  prerogative,  we  have  demonstrated  our  inde- 
pendence of  the  mother  country  in  the  matter  of  our 
speech  and  have  chosen  one  term  while  the  English 
people  have  adopted  another,  to  designate  the  same 
thing.  Both  words  have  a  good  literary  pedigree  ex- 


in  Diit  (English  @peecf)  99 

tending  several  centuries  back.  Shakespearean 
usage  seems  about  equally  divided,  perhaps,  with  the 
odds  in  favor  of  "baggage."  The  Shakespearean 
coinage  "bag  and  baggage  and  scrip  and  scrippage," 
which  falls  from  the  lips  of  Touchstone  in  "As  You 
Like  It,"  and  which  enjoys  the  familiarity  of  a 
household  word,  ought  to  have  given  "baggage"  a 
wider  currency,  especially  in  the  author's  own  coun- 
try. But  language,  like  the  heathen  Chinee,  has 
ways  that  are  dark,  if  not  tricks  that  are  vain,  and 
does  not  develop  according  to  logic  or  our  a  priori 
conceptions.  Between  the  Briticism  "luggage"  and 
the  Americanism  "baggage"  it  appears,  therefore,  to 
be  a  drawn  battle.  So  the  British  have  nothing  to 
reproach  us  with  on  this  score,  since  convention  has 
adopted  "baggage"  on  one  side  of  the  Atlantic  and 
"luggage"  on  the  other. 

So  much  for  this  interesting  class  of  Americanisms 
which  repose  on  standard  Elizabethan  usage,  but  are 
social  outcasts  in  the  land  of  their  birth.  There  is 
another  class  of  Americanisms  which  are  not  bol- 
stered up  by  a  long  literary  pedigree,  inasmuch  as 
they  originated  on  American  soil  and  were  not  im- 
ported from  the  Old  World.  As  compared  with  the 
class  just  considered,  these  latter  are  mere  parvenus, 
without  any  illustrious  ancestral  history  to  commend 
them.  This  class  of  Americanisms  is  composed  of 
phrases  which  have  found  their  way  into  our  speech 
from  various  foreign  sources.  They  have  been  intro- 
duced into  our  tongue  from  our  contact  with  diverse 
peoples  from  remote  parts  of  the  globe.  They  consti- 
tute a  small  residuum  of  terms  and  phrases,  the  pres- 


ioo  ilutons  at 

ence  of  which  in  our  vocabulary  attests  the  fact  of 
our  relations  with  different  nations  of  the  earth.  For 
instance,  in  the  early  history  of  our  country,  we  had 
to  do  with  the  Indians,  and  so  borrowed  from  them 
certain  terms  especially  pertaining  to  natural  ob- 
jects. We  also  had  relations  with  the  French,  and 
consequently  borrowed  from  them  sundry  phrases 
employed  in  official  parlance,  such  as  "bureau  of  in- 
formation," for  which  British  usage  prefers  "office" ; 
"exposition"  for  the  British  "exhibition,"  and  the 
like.  Let  these  few  examples  represent  the  class.  It 
is  apparent  here  that  we  have  made  a  slight  departure 
from  British  usage.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  our 
speech,  for  this  reason,  is  less  pure  or  less  idiomatic. 
Both  American  usage  and  British  usage  show  that 
the  respective  nations  have  decided  to  employ  Ko- 
mance  importations  in  official  language,  but  they 
have  adopted  different  terms  for  the  same  object. 
This  proves,  in  the  first  place,  the  independence  of 
the  two  great  English-speaking  nations  even  in  the 
matter  of  language,  and,  in  the  second  place,  the 
wide-reaching  influence  of  French  as  the  recognized 
official  and  diplomatic  language  during  the  eigh- 
teenth and  early  nineteenth  centuries. 

In  addition  to  these  two  distinct  classes  of  Amer- 
icanisms there  is  a  third  class  composed  of  phrases 
and  expressions  which  have  not  yet  attained  to  the 
dignity  of  universal  currency  throughout  the  entire 
country.  These  are  rather  provincialisms  which  are 
peculiar  to  certain  localities.  This  class,  therefore, 
does  not  command  the  importance  which  the  first  two 
classes  already  considered  do.  In  a  heterogeneous 


fit  £Pur  OEnglte!)  §>peecj)  101 


population  like  ours,  made  up  of  people  from  every 
nationality  under  heaven,  it  is  quite  natural  that  in 
certain  localities  there  should  exist  some  eccentrici- 
ties of  speech,  some  departures  from  the  received 
standard  —  in  a  word,  some  provincialisms.  It  need 
hardly  be  recalled  that  parts  of  our  vast  country  were 
settled  by  other  nations  than  the  English,  as,  for  in- 
stance, New  York  by  the  Dutch  and  Louisiana  by  the 
French,  to  mention  two  specific  cases  bearing  on  the 
point  in  question.  The  people  of  these  respective 
states,  when  they  were  incorporated  into  the  union, 
of  course,  did  not  immediately  forsake  their  native 
modes  of  speech  and  inherited  vocabulary  for  pure, 
unadulterated  Saxon.  When  the  vast  southwest  ter- 
ritory was  made  a  part  of  the  United  States,  the  peo- 
ple in  that  quarter  of  the  land  spoke  a  lingo  which 
had  a  decided  foreign  complexion.  What  more  nat- 
ural, then,  than  that  in  the  speech  of  that  portion  of 
our  land  there  should  exist  traces  of  this  old  foreign 
element?  Assuredly  it  would  have  been  the  height 
of  artificiality  and  an  unprecedented  proceeding  for 
the  French  element  of  New  Orleans,  when  they  be- 
came citizens  of  the  United  States,  to  have  renounced 
their  native  French  names  for  such  natural  objects  as 
"bayou,"  "levee"  and  the  like,  in  order  to  adopt  pure 
Saxon  terms.  Likewise,  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  Spanish  settlers  in  the  western  section  of 
our  country,  specifically  California,  should  abandon 
such  native  terms  as  "canon"  and  "ranch"  and  so 
on,  for  the  corresponding  names  of  genuine  English 
origin.  Thus  it  happens  that  there  is  a  pronounced 
foreign  flavor,  or  at  least  a  slight  tang,  in.  the  eccen- 


£Xue0tiotts  at 


tricities  of  speech  heard  in  certain  localities  of  the 
United  States.  But  these  are  mere  provincialisms 
and  do  not  impair  the  quailty  of  our  standard  speech, 
which  is  English  to  the  very  core. 

However,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  English  lan- 
guage in  America  should  have  received  an  influx  of 
foreign  words  on  American  soil.  But  our  speech 
possesses  a  marvelous  capacity  for  assimilating  non- 
Saxon  elements  from  whatever  source.  Hence  the 
various  foreign  elements,  such  as  Indian,  Dutch, 
French  and  Spanish,  to  mention  only  the  chief  im- 
portations, have  all  been  absorbed  without  any  appre- 
ciable alteration  in  the  constitution  of  our  English 
speech,  and  only  traces  here  and  there  are  seen  of 
non-Saxon  elements  surviving  in  a  word  or  an  idiom 
as  an  enduring  monument  to  the  influence  of  other 
tongues  upon  our  own  on  American  soil.  Some  of 
these  foreign  loans,  it  is  true,  are  confined  to  certain 
localities,  and  consequently  are  to  be  viewed  in  the 
light  of  solecisms,  or  at  best  provincialisms.  They 
circulate  freely  in  a  limited  area,  but  are  not  recog- 
nized as  legal  tender  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  country.  Such  expressions  are  con- 
fined chiefly  to  the  western  portion  of  the  United 
States  and  very  rarely  find  their  way  east.  It  is 
questionable  whether  they  are  entitled  to  be  termed 
Americanisms  except  in  the  most  liberal  interpreta- 
tion of  that  phase,  because  they  are  not  everywhere 
current  and  are  not  readily  intelligible,  not  "under- 
etanded  of  the  people." 

It  seems  appropriate  at  this  juncture  to  say  a  word 
concerning  dialects  in  America.  The  assertion  is 


in  fl>ur  (Ettglfef)  ^peecf)  103 

sometimes  made  that  there  are  no  dialects  in  Amer- 
ica, that  the  railroad  and  printing  press,  the  two 
potent  and  indispensable  agencies  in  our  modern  civ- 
ilization, have  leveled  out  all  eccentricities  and  pe- 
culiarities of  speech  and  reduced  our  language  to  a 
uniform  standard  throughout  our  entire  country. 
This  statement  is,  in  the  main,  true.  Yet  it  requires 
only  a  little  reflection  to  see  that  the  assertion  is  not 
absolutely  accurate  and  in  accord  with  the  facts. 
Certainly  a  brief  residence  in  the  several  principal 
sections  of  the  United  States  would  bring  convincing 
refutation.  There  is  the  western  dialect,  as  implied 
in  the  comments  in  the  preceding  paragraph.  There 
is  also  the  Yankee  dialect  of  New  England,  the 
salient  features  of  which  Lowell  described  very  fully 
in  his  famous  "Biglow  Papers."  There  is  no  less 
truly  the  southern  dialect  with  its  definite  peculiari- 
ties of  idiom  and  utterance.  These  dialects  are  quite 
sharply  defined  by  their  respective  characteristics  of 
colloquial  speech.  Each  dialect  has  its  own  phrases 
and  locutions  familiar  enough  within  its  own  geo- 
graphical divisions,  but  not  readily  understood,  per- 
haps unknown,  elsewhere.  For  instance,  the  native 
southerner  "reckons"  and  "don't  guess,"  whereas  the 
Yankee  ato  the  manner  born"  does  not  "reckon," 
but  "guesses"  a  tort  et  a  {ravers.  As  for  the  western 
dialect,  it  is  said  that  three  elements  enter  into  its 
constitution,  viz.,  the  mining,  the  gambling  and  the 
cowboy  element,  a  rich  vein  of  billingsgate  running 
through  each.  An  effort  has  been  made  by  our  writ- 
ers of  fiction  to  register  and  record  the  salient  feat- 
ures of  these  respective  dialects  incidentally  in  their 


104  £Xue0tiott$  at 

stories,  but  the  shades  and  gradations  of  speech  are 
not  easy  to  reflect  and  preserve  on  the  printed  page 
with  the  corresponding  local  color.  Hence  the  work 
has  been  but  partially  done,  and  nowhere  with  com- 
plete success. 

We  Americans  are  far  less  trammeled  by  dialectal 
inconveniences  and  perplexities,  however,  than  are 
the  English  people.  For  in  Great  Britain  there  is 
much  less  uniformity  of  speech  than  with  us,  and  the 
difference  between  the  language  of  a  Scotchman  and 
that  of  a  Devonshire  man  is  almost  infinitely  greater 
than  the  difference  between  any  two  American  dia- 
lects. But  the  dissimilarity  of  the  British  dialects  is 
historic  and  dates  back  from  time  immemorial.  The 
story  of  Caxton,  the  first  English  printer,  is  well 
known,  how  the  good  merchant  from  a  southern 
shire,  when  he  inquired  for  eggs  of  a  good  wife  in  a 
northern  shire,  could  not  make  himself  understood, 
his  southern  dialect  being  mistaken  for  French.  To 
be  sure,  the  dialectal  differences  are  not  so  great 
to-day  as  they  were  in  those  remote  times,  largely  as 
the  result  of  the  printing-press  Caxton  set  up  in  West- 
minster. But  even  yet  the  differences  between  the 
dialects  of  the  extreme  parts  of  the  British  Isles  is  so 
pronounced  as  to  be  a  barrier  to  complete  interchange 
of  thought. 

It  appears  from  the  foregoing  that  the  indictment 
of  corrupting  the  English  language  which  certain 
British  critics  have  brought  in  against  the  American 
people  is  not  a  true  bill,  since  no  count  has  been  es- 
tablished. Our  British  critics  seem  loath  to  ac- 
knowledge any  American  rights  in  our  common  Ian- 


in  flDut  OEttglisf)  ^peecft  105 

guage.  Americans  have  as  much  right  to  enrich  the 
English  vocabulary  with  useful  words  as  the  English 
people  themselves.  We  also  have  as  just  a  claim  as 
they  to  revive  and  preserve  an  obsolescent  phrase  or 
idiom.  Because  a  given  English  word  is  no  longer  in 
use  and  esteem  in  England,  but  is  recognized  as 
standard  usage  in  the  United  States,  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  it  is  not  good  English.  The  number  of  those 
using  the  English  language  in  America  far  exceeds 
the  population  of  England,  and  the  English  speech 
is  just  as  vigorous  and  virile  in  America  as  it  is  in  the 
parent  country.  Indeed,  it  has  given  indubitable 
proof  of  its  vitality  and  vigor  on  American  lips  by 
adapting  itself  to  the  infinite  variety  of  new  condi- 
tions in  this  new  country  and  by  the  added  flexibility, 
strength  and  richness  as  exhibited  in  its  augmented 
vocabulary.  English  now  is  the  language  of  the 
American  people  as  well  as  of  the  English  people. 
It  is,  therefore,  no  longer  proper  or  scientific  to  speak 
of  the  queen's  or  of  the  king's  English.  Such  a  phrase 
is  really  an  anachronism  in  the  twentieth  century, 
when  the  English-speaking  subjects  of  King  Edward 
are  numerically  inferior  to  those  not  owning  alle- 
giance to  Britain's  sovereign,  who  speak  the  same 
tongue.  Moreover,  it  is  manifestly  not  in  keeping 
with  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  as  well  as  unscien- 
tific, for  our  British  kith  and  kin  to  stigmatize  an 
idiom  or  a  phrase  in  good  American  usage  as  a  pro- 
vincialism simply  because  it  is  not  current  in  Great 
Britain.  The  Britons  have  no  more  right  to  attempt 
to  prescribe  and  limit  the  growth  of  the  English 
tongue  than  we  have.  Nor  do  they  enjoy  an  ex- 


106  €tiie0tion0  at 


elusive  prerogative  of  determining  whether  a  given 
expression,  be  it  a  new  coinage  or  a  survival  from  a 
former  period,  shall  live  and  flourish  or  decline  and 
perish  in  the  English  tongue.  ~No  sovereign,  no  na- 
tion can  determine  this,  either  by  decree  or  by  stat- 
ute. The  most  that  the  British  can  say  in  deroga- 
tion of  an  alleged  Americanism  is  that  it  is  current 
only  in  America  and  is  not  authorized  by  British 
usage.  But  this  does  not  make  it  un-English,  if  it 
bears  the  American  sign  manual. 

It  is  perfectly  absurd  for  the  British  critics  to 
condemn  Americanisms  offhand  and  to  attempt  to 
read  them  out  of  the  language,  simply  because  they 
are  not  in  accord  with  British  usage.  In  so  doing 
they  give  proof  of  their  insularity  and  fail  to  exhibit 
a  spirit  of  liberality  and  sweet  reasonableness.  In- 
deed, they  seem  disposed,  at  all  events,  to  take  them- 
selves too  seriously  as  guardians  of  the  English  lan- 
guage. It  is  well  enough  for  a  critic  to  throw  his 
influence  on  the  side  of  the  preservation  of  the  purity 
and  propriety  of  speech.  But  it  is  sheer  folly  to 
allow  one's  pedantry  to  go  to  such  a  length  as  Mal- 
herbe,  that  "tyrant  of  words  and  syllables,"  who  on 
his  death-bed  angrily  rebuked  his  nurse  for  the 
solecisms  of  her  language,  exclaiming  in  extenuation 
of  his  act,  "Sir,  I  will  defend  to  my  very  last  gasp  the 
purity  of  the  French  language."  It  is  related  of  him 
that  he  was  so  fatal  a  precisian  in  the  choice  of  words 
that  he  spent  three  years  in  composing  an  ode  on 
the  death  of  a  friend's  wife,  ind  when  at  last  the 
ode  was  completed,  his  friend  had  married  again,  and 
the  purist  had  only  his  labor  for  his  pains, 


in  2Dut  <ZEttffH0!)  @peec&  107 

your  true  British  pedant  seems  to  think  it  his 
bounden  duty  to  reject  summarily  every  word  or  ex- 
pression which  does  not  bear  the  pure  English  hall- 
mark, and  that  as  for  Americanisms  they  are  an 
abomination  which  must  inevitably  work  the  speedy 
corruption  and  ultimate  decadence  of  the  noble  Eng- 
lish tongue.  Such  an  one,  whether  from  his  precis- 
ianism or  his  prejudice,  fails  utterly  to  recognize  in 
Americanisms  conclusive  evidence  of  the  inherent 
potency,  vigor  and  vitality  of  the  English  language 
on  American  lips. 


*<>8  €iue0tion0  at  issue 


WHAT  IS  SLANG? 

To  the  purist  slang  is  an  unmitigated  evil  which 
makes  for  the  gradual  corruption  and  decadence  of 
our  vernacular.  The  pedant  who  is  a  martinet  re- 
gards all  slang  with  absolute  contempt  and  abhors  its 
use,  because  he  believes  slang  spells  deterioration  for 
our  noble  tongue.  Such  an  one  takes  his  self- 
appointed  guardianship  of  the  language  very  seri- 
iously  and  deems  it  his  bounden  duty  as  a  curator  of 
our  English  speech,  not  only  himself  to  spurn  the 
use  of  slang,  but  also  to  inveigh  against  all  those  who 
employ  it  habitually  or  occasionally.  The  baneful 
influence  of  slang,  he  tells  us,  is  sweeping  like  a 
mighty  tidal  wave  over  the  English  language,  debas- 
ing it  and  corrupting  its  very  sources. 

Nor  is  the  precisionist  alone  in  entertaining  this 
alarming  view.  For  many  others  who  are  not  stick- 
lers for  strict  propriety  and  correctness  of  speech 
share,  to  some  extent,  the  same  opinion,  although  they 
feel  no  special  concern  as  to  the  final  outcome.  How- 
ever, it  is  reassuring  to  reflect  that  the  best-informed 
among  us  and  those  whose  thorough  knowledge  en- 
titles them  to  speak  with  authority  do  not  take  so 
gloomy  and  pessimistic  a  view  of  the  future  of  the 
English  language.  They  inform  us  that  the  fears  of 


in  flDut  OBngIf06  Speech  109 

the  pedants  and  pedagogues — the  half-educated — are 
never  destined  to  be  realized. 

"Strictly  speaking/7  says  Professor  Lounsbury, 
than  whom  there  is  no  higher  authority  in  America 
on  the  history  of  English,  "there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  language  becoming  corrupt.  It  is  an  instrument 
which  will  be  just  what  those  who  use  it  choose  to 
make  it.  The  words  that  constitute  it  have  no  real 
significance  of  their  own.  It  is  the  meaning  men  put 
into  them  that  gives  them  all  the  efficacy  they  pos- 
sess. Language  does  nothing  more  than  reflect  the 
character  and  the  characteristics  of  those  who  speak 
it.  It  mirrors  their  thoughts  and  feelings,  their  pas- 
sions and  prejudices,  their  hopes  and  aspirations, 
their  aims,  whether  high  or  low.  In  the  mouth  of 
the  bombastic  it  will  be  inflated ;  in  the  mouth  of  the 
illiterate  it  will  be  full  of  vulgarisms ;  in  the  mouth 
of  the  precise  it  will  be  formal  and  pedantic.  The 
history  of  language  is  the  history  of  corruptions — 
using  that  term  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  constantly 
employed  by  those  who  are  stigmatizing  by  it  the  new 
words  and  phrases  and  constructions  to  which  they 
take  exception.  Every  one  of  us  is  to-day  employing 
expressions  which  either  outrage  the  rules  of  strict 
grammar,  or  disregard  the  principles  of  analogy,  or 
belong  by  their  origin  to  what  we  now  deem  the  worst 
sort  of  vulgarisms.  These  so-called  corruptions  are 
found  everywhere  in  the  vocabulary,  and  in  nearly 
all  the  parts  of  speech." 

Yet  the  feeling  of  the  pedants  and  purists  reflects 
the  traditional  attitude  of  professional  men  of  let- 
ters in  respect  to  the  so-called  corruptions  that  have 


no  £Xue0ttott0  at  300ue 

been  creeping  into  English  during  the  last  few  cen- 
turies. It  may  be  worth  while  to  give  some  of  the 
utterances  of  our  representative  English  authors  on 
this  subject,  showing  how  great  solicitude  they  felt 
for  the  purity  of  our  language  in  consequence  of  the 
increasing  slang  introduced  into  English.  But  before 
doing  this,  let  us  make  a  brief  digression,  in  order 
to  discuss  what  is  meant  by  slang,  which  appears  to 
be  the  source  of  the  alleged  corruptions  of  our 
speech. 

In  the  first  place  one  must  differentiate  slang  from 
cant.  It  is  evident,  on  a  careful  analysis,  that  much 
of  the  reputed  slang  now  current  is  really  cant,  not 
slang,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Both  cant 
and  slang  are  closely  allied  and  have  a  kindred  ori- 
gin. This  is  the  reason  for  the  confusion  of  the  two 
in  the  popular  mind. 

Cant  is  the  language  of  a  certain  class  or  sect  of 
people.  It  is  the  phraseology,  the  dialect,  so  to  say, 
of  a  certain  craft  or  profession  and  is  not  readily 
understood  save  by  the  members  of  the  craft  con- 
cerned. It  may  be  perfectly  correct  according  to  the 
rules  of  grammar,  but  it  is  not  perfectly  intelligible 
and  is  not  understood  by  the  people.  It  is  an  esoteric 
language  which  only  the  initiated  fully  comprehend 
and  are  familiar  with.  Eor  example,  the  jargon  of 
thieves  is  called  cant,  as  is  also  the  jargon  of  pro- 
fessional gamblers.  Slang,  on  the  other  hand,  be- 
longs to  no  particular  class.  It  is  a  collection  of 
words  and  phrases,  borrowed  from  whatever  source, 
which  everybody  is  acquainted  with  and  readily  un- 
derstands. It  is  not  uncouth  gibberish  intelligible 


in  Dut  €ng!i0f)  ©peedj  m 

only  to  a  few.  It  is  composed  of  colloquialisms 
everywhere  current,  but  homely  and  not  refined 
enough  to  be  admitted  into  polite  speech.  Such  ex- 
pressions may  be  allowed  a  place  in  certain  depart- 
ments of  literature,  as  familiar  and  humorous  writ- 
ing, but  they  are  objectionable  in  grave  and  serious 
composition  and  speech. 

Now,  slang  is  reputed  to  have  had  its  origin  in 
cant,  specifically  "thieves'  Latin,"  as  the  cant  of  this 
vagabond  class  is  called.  Indeed,  this  appears  to 
have  been  the  only  meaning  of  slang  till  probably  the 
second  quarter  of  the  last  century.  In  "Red  Gaunt- 
let," published  in  1824,  Scott  refers  to  certain  cant 
words  and  "thieves7  Latin  called  slang";  and  the 
great  romancer  seems  to  have  been  fully  aware  that 
he  was  using  a  rather  unknown  term  which  required 
a  gloss.  Sometime  during  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, so  Professor  Brander  Matthews  informs  us, 
slang  lost  this  narrow  limitation  and  came  to  signify 
a  word  or  phrase  used  with  a  meaning  not  recog- 
nized in  polite  letters,  either  because  it  had  just  been, 
invented  or  because  it  had  passed  out  of  memory.  If 
it  is  true  that  slang  had  its  beginning  in  the  argot  of 
thieves,  it  soon  lost  all  association  with  its  vulgar 
source,  and  polite  slang  to-day  bears  hardly  a  remote 
suggestion  of  the  lingo  of  this  disreputable  class.  In 
so  short  a  period — but  little  more  than  a  half  cen- 
tury— has  the  word,  as  well  as  the  thing  it  signifies, 
separated  itself  from  its  unsavory  early  association 
and  worked  its  way  up  into  good  spciety. 

Of  slang,  however,  there  are  several  kinds.  There 
is  a  slang  attached  to  certain  different  professions 


at 


and  classes  of  society,  such  as  college  slang,  political 
slang  and  racing  slang.  But  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  this  differentiation  has  reference  to  the 
origin  of  the  slang  in  the  cant  of  these  respective 
professions.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  slang  to  circulate 
more  or  less  freely  among  all  classes  of  society.  Yet 
there  are  several  kinds  of  slang  corresponding  to  the 
several  classes  of  society,  such  as  vulgar  and  polite, 
to  mention  only  two  general  classes.  Now,  it  is  true 
of  all  slang,  as  a  rule,  that  it  is  the  result  of  an  effort 
to  express  an  idea  in  a  more  vigorous,  piquant  and 
terse  manner  than  standard  usage  ordinarily  admits. 
In  proof  of  this  it  will  suffice  to  cite  awfully  for 
very,  employed  by  every  school-girl  as  "awfully 
cute"  ;  peach  or  daisy  for  something  or  some  one  es- 
pecially attractive  or  admirable,  as  "she's  a  peach"; 
a  walk-over  for  any  easy  victory,  a  dead  cinch  for  a 
surety,  and  the  like.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  mul- 
tiply examples  of  a  mode  of  expression  which  is  per- 
fectly familiar  to  all.  Every  man's  vocabulary  con- 
tains slang  terms  and  phrases,  some  more  than  oth- 
ers. Often  the  slang  consists  of  words  in  good  social 
standing  which  are  arbitrarily  misapplied.  For  al- 
though much  current  slang  is  of  vulgar  origin  and 
bears  upon  its  face  the  bend  sinister  of  its  vulgarity, 
still  some  of  it  is  of  good  birth  and  is  held  in  repute 
by  writers  and  speakers  even  who  are  punctilious  as 
to  their  English.  Some  slang  expressions  are  of  the 
nature  of  metaphors,  and  are  highly  figurative.  Such 
are  to  kick  the  bucket,  to  pass  in  your  checks,  to 
hold  up,  to  pull  the  wool  over  your  eyes,  to  talk 
through  your  hat,  to  fire  out,  to  go  lack  onf  to  make 


in  2Dut  OBnglis])  %peec|)  113 


yourself  solid  with,  to  have  a  jag  on,  to  be  loaded,  to 
freeze  on  to,  to  freeze  out,  to  bark  up  the  wrong  tree, 
don't  monkey  with  the  buzz-saw,  and  in  the  soup. 
But  of  the  different  kinds  of  slang  and  of  its  vivid 
and  picturesque  character  more  anon. 

Let  us  now,  after  this  digression  as  to  what  consti- 
tutes slang,  return  to  the  former  question  of  the  his- 
torical aspect  of  slang,  which  was  engaging  our  con- 
sideration. Though  the  name  is  modern,  slang  itself 
is,  in  reality,  of  venerable  age,  and  was  recognized 
in  the  plebeian  speech  of  Petronius,  the  Beau  Brum- 
mel  of  Nero's  time,  whose  "Trimalchio's  Dinner"  is 
replete  with  the  choicest  slang  of  the  Eoman  "smart 
set."  The  humorous  pages  of  Francois  Rabelais, 
also,  have  a  copious  sprinkling  of  slang  expressions 
and  invite  comparison  with  the  productions  of  some 
of  our  own  American  humorists,  who  depend  not  a 
little  upon  the  vigorous  western  slang  to  enhance  the 
effectiveness  of  their  humor.  But  it  is  more  to  the 
point  to  cite  historical  instances  among  our  English 
authors,  especially  those  who  set  themselves  the  bur- 
densome, yet  thankless,  task  of  striving  to  preserve 
the  primitive  purity  of  our  speech. 

The  greatest  representative  of  this  number  in  Eng- 
lish lierature,  excepting  Addison,  is  Swift,  the 
famous  dean  of  St.  Patrick's.  He  was  impelled  by 
a  desire  amounting  almost  to  a  passion,  it  is  said,  to 
hand  down  the  English  language  to  his  successors 
with  its  vaunted  purity  and  beauty  absolutely  unim- 
paired. In  an  essay  in  The  Tattler  of  September 
28,  IT  10,  he  gives  vehement  utterance  to  his  feelings 
on  the  shocking  carelessness  and  woeful  lack  of  taste 


H4  4Ctue$tfottg  at 

in  the  use  of  the  vernacular  exhibited  by  his  con- 
temporaries. He  affirms  that  the  conscienceless,  un- 
refined writers  of  his  day  were  utterly  indifferent  as 
to  the  effect  of  their  deplorable  practice  upon  the 
future  of  the  English  tongue  and  brought  forward, 
in  proof  of  his  contention,  numerous  examples  of 
solecisms  which  he  alleged  were  constantly  employed, 
to  the  corruption  and  deterioration  of  the  language. 

Swift  made  a  threefold  division  of  the  barbarous 
neologisms  which  were  introduced  in  his  day.  It  is 
interesting  to  observe  his  several  classes  of  these  locu- 
tions that  were  contrary  to  all  rules  of  propriety. 
The  first  class  was  made  up  of  abbreviations  in  which 
only  the  first  syllable  or  part  of  the  word  had  to  do 
duty  for  the  entire  word,  as  phiz  for  physiognomy, 
hyp  for  hypochondria,  mob  for  mobile  vulgus,  poz 
for  positive,  rep  for  reputation,  incog  for  incognito 
and  plenipo  for  plenipotentiary.  The  second  class 
included  polysyllables,  such  as  speculations,  bat- 
talions, ambassadors,  palisadoes,  operations,  com- 
munications, preliminaries,  circumvallations  and 
other  ungraceful,  mouth-filling  words,  which  Swift 
alleged  were  introduced  into  the  language  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  war  of  the  Spanish  succession  then  in 
progress.  His  third  class  embraced  those  terms  which 
were,  to  quote  his  own  words,  "invented  by  certain 
pretty  fellows,  such  as  banter,  bamboozle,  country 
put  and  kidney/'  "I  have  done  my  utmost/'  he  pa- 
thetically remarks,  "for  some  years  past  to  stop  the 
progress  of  mob  and  banter,  but  have  been  plainly 
borne  down  by  numbers  and  betrayed  by  those  who 
promised  to  assist  me," 


in  fl)ur  Cnglisi)  @peec&  115 

Two  years  later  Swift  addressed  a  public  letter  to 
the  Earl  of  Oxford,  the  Lord  High  Treasurer,  depre- 
cating the  approaching  decadence  of  the  English 
tongue  and  earnestly  urging  some  sort  of  concerted 
action  for  correcting  and  improving  the  vernacular. 
The  language,  the  letter  recited,  was  very  imperfect 
and  daily  deteriorating.  The  period  of  its  greatest 
purity,  Swift  went  on  to  say,  was  that  from  the  be- 
ginning of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  to  the  breaking 
out  of  the  evil  war  of  1642.  His  perturbed  mind  was 
filled  with  mingled  feelings  of  grief  and  indigna- 
tion as  he  pointed  out  in  this  letter  the  growing  cor- 
ruptions then  so  apparent  even  in  the  writings  of 
the  best  authors,  and  more  especially  as  he  was  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  not  only  the  fanatics  of  the  com- 
monwealth, but  also  the  court  itself,  had  contributed 
to  bring  about  the  sad  condition  of  the  language. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  speak  in  detail  of  Swift's 
fanciful  and  quixotic  scheme  for  purging  the  lan- 
guage and  keeping  it  pure.  But  it  is  interesting  to  ob- 
serve, in  passing,  that  his  urgent  appeal  to  the  prime 
minister  to  become  the  guardian  and  curator  of  the 
English  tongue  was  utterly  fruitless  and,  what  is 
more,  that  his  direful  predictions  as  to  the  speedy 
decay  of  English  have  never  been  verified.  Further- 
more, some  of  those  very  neologisms  which  Swift 
criticized  so  unrelentingly  are  now  recognized  in  po- 
lite speech  and  bear  the  stamp  of  approval  as  the 
jus  et  norma  loquendi.  Of  his  second  class  of  bar- 
barisms well-nigh  all  are  to-day  accepted  as  standard 
English  and  are  without  a  trace  of  slang.  With  his 
first  and  third  classes,  however,  fate  has  not  dealt  so 


at 


kindly,  for  these  words  are  still  under  condemnation, 
save  mob,  which  has  forced  its  way  to  recognition  in 
good  usage  as  a  necessary  term. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  ap- 
peared another  champion  of  the  preservation  of  the 
purity  and  propriety  of  the  English  speech.  This 
was  James  Beattie,  a  learned  Scotchman.  For  some 
reason  or  other,  the  Scotch  seemed  extremely  solici- 
tous about  the  English  language  during  the  eigh- 
teenth century  —  a  solicitude  that  was  not  appreciated 
by  the  British  lexicographers  and  least  of  all  by  Dr. 
Johnson.  In  a  letter  written  in  1790,  Beattie  took 
occasion  to  speak  of  the  "new-fangled  phrases  and 
barbarous  idioms  that  are  now  so  much  affected  by 
those  who  form  their  style  from  political  pamphlets 
and  those  pretended  speeches  in  Parliament  that  ap- 
pear in  the  newspapers."  "Should  this  jargon  con- 
tinue to  gain  ground  among  us,"  he  assures  his  cor- 
respondent, in  a  doleful  mood,  "English  literature 
will  go  to  ruin.  During  the  last  twenty  years,  espe- 
cially since  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  war, 
it  has  made  alarming  progress.  ...  If  I  live  to 
execute  what  I  purpose  on  the  writings  and  genius  of 
Addison,  I  shall  at  least  enter  my  protest  against  the 
practise  ;  and  by  exhibiting  a  copious  specimen  of  the 
new  phraseology,  endeavor  to  make  my  reader  set  his 
heart  against  it." 

In  order  to  emphasize  the  damage  resulting  to 
the  language  from  the  neologisms  which  were  creep- 
ing in,  Beattie  conceived  the  clever  plan  of  privately 
printing  a  series  of  "Dialogues  of  the  Dead,"  which 
purported  to  be  the  production  of  his  son  deceased 


in  €>itr  Cnglfeft  ©peetft  117 

a  few  years  before.  The  most  interesting  of  these 
"Dialogues"  is  the  report  of  an  imaginary  conversa- 
tion between  Dean  Swift,  a  bookseller  and  Mercury, 
in  which  the  worthy  dean  expresses  himself  as  greatly 
shocked  and  disgusted  at  the  outlandish  English  used 
by  the  bookseller;  and  he  calls  on  Mercury  to  trans- 
late the  patois  into  good  English.  In  response  to 
Swift's  earnest  request,  Mercury  says  among  other 
things :  "Instead  of  life,  new,  wish  for,  take,  plunge, 
etc.,  you  must  say  existence,  novel,  desiderate,  cap- 
ture, ingurgitate,  etc.,  as — a  fever  put  an  end  to  his 
existence.  .  .  .  Instead  of  a  new  fashion,  you  will 
do  well  to  say  a  novel  fashion.  .  .  .  You  must  on 
no  account  speak  of  taking  the  enemy's  ships,  towns, 
guns  or  baggage:  it  must  be  capturing."  Other 
words  which  were  censured  as  improper  by  this  phan- 
tom critic  were  unfriendly  and  hostile  for  which 
inimical  was  recommended;  sort  and  kind,  in  place 
of  each  of  which  description  was  to  be  used.  Some 
of  the  locutions  then  in  vogue  which  especially  of- 
fended good  taste,  according  to  Beattie,  were  to  make 
up  ones  mind-,  to  scout  the  idea,  to  go  to  prove,  line 
of  conduct,  in  contemplation,  and  for  the  future. 
Furthermore,  the  frequent  use  of  feel,  which  threat- 
ened to  supplant  the  verb  to  ~be  in  such  an  idiom  as 
"I  am  sick"  and  drive  it  from  its  rightful  domain, 
aroused  the  learned  Scotch  purist's  apprehension  as 
to  the  final  outcome,  as  did  also  the  growing  tendency 
to  employ  truism  for  truth,  committal  for  commit- 
ment, pugilist  for  boxer,  approval  for  approbation 
and  agriculturist  for  husbandman. 

No  doubt  Beattie  believed  with  Swift  that  the  in- 


us  Hue0tion0  at 

flux  of  such  pedantic  Latinisms  as  desiderate  and 
ingurgitate  and  the  like  would  result  in  impairing 
the  purity  of  our  speech  and  perhaps  hasten  its  de- 
clension. ISTor  did  he  look  with  favor  on  the  growing 
fashion  to  use  monosyllables,  though  of  pure  Saxon 
origin,  so  much  affected  by  some  writers  during  that 
period.  Both  of  these  tendencies  were  of  temporary 
vogue ;  yet  they  served  to  arouse  the  fears  of  the  ultra- 
conservatives  as  to  the  fate  of  the  English  language. 
One  might  suppose  that,  dreading  the  then  threaten- 
ing invasion  of  Latin  terms  as  they  clearly  did,  they 
would  have  hailed  with  delight  the  revival  of  Saxon 
monosyllables  as  a  favorable  offset.  But  even  this 
did  not  allay  their  fears  and  was  rather  interpreted 
as  a  harmful  symptom.  Time,  however,  has  demon- 
strated fully  that  the  fears  of  those  purists  were  un- 
warranted and  that  their  dire  predictions  as  to  the 
future  of  English  were  founded  on  a  very  imperfect 
knowledge  of  linguistic  development.  A  cursory  ex- 
amination of  Beattie's  lists  reveals  the  fact  that  of 
the  verbal  innovations  and  offending  phrases  which 
he  put  under  the  ban,  the  genius  of  the  language  has 
adopted  not  a  few,  and  that,  too,  without  impairing 
in  the  least  the  purity  of  the  English  tongue  or  its 
capacity  for  expressing  the  finest  shades  of  thought. 
So  far  from  losing,  the  language  has  gained  in  its 
capacity  for  expressing  nice  distinctions  of  thought 
and  feeling,  as  a  result  of  its  marvelous  absorptive 
power. 

It  has  thus  been  shown  that  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury there  were  not  wanting  those — purists  or  what 
not — who  entertained  and  expressed  no  little  concern 


in  ffl)ut  CnglteJ)  @>peecft  119 

as  to  the  ultimate  effect  upon  our  speech  of  the  multi- 
tude of  neologisms  and  asserted  improprieties  that 
were  introduced.  Did  space  permit,  utterances  of  a 
similar  character  by  nineteenth-century  writers, 
from  Walter  Savage  Landon  down  to  critics  of  far 
less  renown,  might  be  brought  forward  as  evidence  to 
show  that  the  watch-dogs  of  our  speech  were  as  nu- 
merous and  as  alert  as  ever.  E"or  is  their  tribe  yet 
extinct.  Ever  and  anon,  even  in  the  last  few  years, 
some  prophet  of  evil  is  heard  to  raise  his  voice  in  vig- 
orous protest  against  the  increasing  use  of  slang  as 
foreboding  the  decadence  of  our  vernacular.  But  the 
warning  is  not  heeded;  and  the  English  language, 
like  the  real  living  thing  that  it  is,  goes  on  develop- 
ing according  to  the  subtle  principles  of  speech  devel- 
opment. 

The  laws  governing  speech  development  are  very 
imperfectly  known.  Consequently  none  can  foretell 
how  a  given  tongue  may  develop.  The  language  ap- 
pears to  be  independent  of  one's  individual  habit  of 
speech ;  yet  it  is  the  sum  total  of  the  individual  habits 
of  speech  that  constitutes  the  language.  No  man 
makes  a  language;  no  man  can  make  it.  "Not  even 
the  greatest  monarch  on  earth  can,  by  decree  or  fiat, 
predetermine  the  course  of  development  of  the  lan- 
guage of  his  subjects.  Language  is  an  involuntary 
product  and  does  not  result  from  any  determined  con- 
cert of  action.  Yet  it  is  modified  and  changed  by 
various  influences.  As  long  as  it  is  alive  and  spoken, 
it  is  constantly  changing  and  will  not  remain  "fixed7' 
according  to  the  whimsical  desire  of  the  purist.  When 
it  ceases  to  be  used  upon  the  lips  of  the  people  as  a 


120  IXuestions  at 

medium  of  communication  of  their  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, then  it  will  cease  to  change  and  grow  and  will 
become  "fixed."  But  when  a  language  is  no  longer 
spoken,  it  is  characterized  as  dead.  It  is  in  this  sense 
that  we  call  Latin  and  Greek  dead  languages,  al- 
though they  survive  in  modern  Italian  and  modern 
Greek,  respectively. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  it  is  the  height  of  folly 
for  any  one,  no  matter  how  highly  esteemed  as  an 
author,  to  attempt  the  role  of  reformer  of  the  speech. 
Such  an  one  is  destined  to  have  only  his  labor  for 
his  pains.  He  can  not  directly  purge  the  language  of 
its  neologisms  and  improprieties  of  usage.  These 
violations  of  standard  usage  which  offend  good  taste, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  furnish  indubitable  evidence 
of  the  vitality  of  the  speech;  for  from  these  contra- 
band expressions  come  the  new  terms  and  idioms 
which  are  to  take  the  place  of  the  obsolete  words 
which  drop  out  of  the  vocabulary. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  slang  assumes  a  different  as- 
pect, and  it  becomes  evident  that  it  performs  a  cer- 
tain necessary  function  in  the  development  of  lan- 
guage. It  is  no  longer  proper,  therefore,  to  refer  to 
slang  with  supreme  contempt  and  to  condemn  it  off- 
hand as  an  unmitigated  evil  which  ought  to  be  forth- 
with extirpated  from  the  language.  For,  as  an  emi- 
nent authority  has  observed,  slang  is  the  recruiting 
ground  of  language  and  is,  in  reality,  idiom  in  the 
making.  It  has  been  pointed  out  how  some  of  the 
slang  expressions  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  fell 
under  the  censure  of  Swift  and  Beattie  are  now 
found  upon  the  pages  of  our  best  authors  and  are 


in  flDttr  dEnglfefe  %>peecfc  121 

heard  upon  the  lips  of  our  most  polished  and  elegant 
speakers.  Since  this  is  true,  no  verbal  critic  can  at 
the  present  time  affirm  of  a  polite  slang  expression 
now  in  vogue  that  it  is  destined  never  to  work  its  way 
up  into  good  usage,  or  of  a  foreign  locution  that  it 
will  never  be  domiciled  in  our  speech.  NOT  can  he 
determine,  in  the  case  of  a  new  coinage  which  is  a 
candidate  for  adoption  into  the  literary  language, 
just  when  it  is  taken  over  from  that  doubtful  border- 
land between  slang  and  standard  usage. 

Seeing,  then,  that  slang  really  has  a  function  to 
perform  in  the  growth  of  speech  and,  therefore,  that 
it  is  worthy  of  serious  consideration,  let  us  examine 
some  of  our  modern  English  slang  and  study  for  a 
short  while  its  origin  and  history. 

Professor  Brander  Matthews,  in  an  admirable  pa- 
per on  the  subject,  divides  slang  into  four  classes, 
and  we  can  hardly  do  better  than  to  follow  his  gen- 
eral classification.  The  first  class  embraces  those 
vulgar  cant  expressions  which  are  the  survivals  of 
thieves'  Latin  or  St.  Giles'  Greek,  and  those  uncouth, 
inelegant  terms  which  constitute  the  vernacular  of 
the  lower  orders  of  society.  This  is  the  kind  of  slang 
heard  in  the  police  courts,  the  kind  the  newspaper 
reporter  too  frequently  resorts  to,  in  order  to  give 
spice  to  his  account.  It  has  been  introduced  into  lit- 
erature by  some  of  our  recent  novelists,  notably  Dick- 
ens. The  second  class  of  slang  is  not  quite  so  coarse, 
and  includes  those  ephemeral  phrases  and  catchwords 
which  have  a  fleeting  popularity  and  which,  because 
they  meet  no  real  need,  are  soon  forgotten  utterly. 
They  live  but  a  day  and  pass  away,  leaving  behind 


122 €tue0tiong  at 

no  trace  of  their  existence.  Of  this  class  are  cam- 
paign slogans  and  such  inane  expressions  as  where 
did  you  get  that  hat?  cliestnut,  rot,  I  should  smile 
and  many  others  equally  stupid.  It  is  these  two 
classes  of  slang  that  have  brought  the  term  into  dis- 
repute and  merited  contempt.  For  this  sort  of  slang 
is  very  offensive  to  delicate  ears  and  justly  deserves 
the  speedy  oblivion  which  overtakes  it. 

The  other  two  classes  of  slang,  on  the  contrary,  are 
of  a  finer  type  and  have  a  reason  for  their  being, 
something  to  commend  them  to  popular  favor.  It 
may  well  be  that  from  this  type  new  idioms  and 
phrases  are  recruited  into  our  literary  language. 
However,  a  certain  stigma  attaches  to  this  better  va- 
riety of  slang,  also,  in  the  judgment  of  many,  simply 
because  it  is  slang.  Yet  it  is  heard  on  the  lips  of 
educated  and  cultured  speakers,  much  to  the  disgust 
of  those  who  are  fastidious  as  to  the  propriety  of 
usage.  When  it  is  employed  in  the  written  speech, 
the  more  careful  writers  brand  it  with  inverted  com- 
mas, the  barbarian  earmarks  which  attest  its  social 
inferiority.  Occasionally  a  bold  writer  like  Mr. 
Howells  breaks  down  these  barriers  which  convention 
has  set  up  and  gives  a  polite  slang  expression  the 
stamp  of  his  approval  and  authority.  In  this  way 
these  social  outcasts,  the  pariahs  of  our  literary 
speech,  are  now  and  then  elevated  to  the  dignity  and 
rank  of  good  society,  and  finally  establish  themselves 
in  standard  English. 

Of  these  two  classes  of  slang  serving  some  useful 
end  as  feeders  to  the  vocabulary  and  idiom  of  our 
language  by  which  its  wasting  energy  is  to  be  re- 


in  Ditt  4Englt0f)  §>peecft  123 

paired,  the  first  embraces  those  archaic  phrases  and 
terms  which  are  revived  after  long  disuse  and  again 
brought  into  service.  Restored  after  several  genera- 
tions of  neglect,  they  now  appear  to  be  entirely  new 
coinages  and  are  only  received  as  other  probationers. 
The  second  class  is  composed  of  absolutely  new  words 
and  expressions,  frequently  the  product  of  a  happy 
invention  and,  generally,  racy  and  forceful.  As  in- 
stances of  the  first  class  may  be  mentioned  to  fire, 
in  the  sense  to  expel  forcibly  or  dismiss,  bloody  in 
the  senes  of  very,  deck  in  the  sense  pack  of  cards  and 
similar  historic  Elizabethan  revivals.  Such  locu- 
tions have  a  good  literary  pedigree,  now  and  then 
boasting  the  authority  of  Shakespearean  usage.  But 
this  is  not  always  apparent  and  such  long-obsolete 
phrases  are,  therefore,  accounted  mere  parvenus.  For 
example,  in  King  Henry  VI.  we  read: 

Whiles  he  thought  to  steal  the  single  ten, 

The  king  was  slily  fingered  from  the  deck. — 3  Pr.;v.l. 

and  again  in  Shakespeare's  144th  sonnet: 

Till  my  good  angel  fire  my  bad  one  out. 

The  vulgar  bloody,  more  common  in  England  than  in 
America,  is  an  inheritance  from  the  classic  age  of 
Dryden,  who  even  uses  the  coarse  phrase  "bloody 
drunk"  in  his  Prologue  to  "Southerners  Disappoint- 
ment." Swift  furnishes  a  slight  variation  from  this 
in  "bloody  sick,"  occurring  in  his  "Poisoning  of 
Curll."  The  more  fruitful  province  of  polite  slang 


£tue0tion0  at  issue 


is  the  second  class,  which  is  made  up  of  the  clever 
productions  of  the  present  age.  It  is  from  the  best 
of  these  coinages,  above  all,  that  the  worn-out  ener- 
gies of  our  vocabulary  and  idiom  are  repaired.  These 
raw  recruits  of  slang  are  severely  disciplined  and 
tested  by  hard  preliminary  service.  If  in  this  test 
an  individual  slang  expression  proves  useful  and  is 
seen  to  fill  an  actual  need,  it  is  admitted  eventually 
into  the  fellowship  of  standard  English.  But  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  its  utility  is  not  established,  it  is  rele- 
gated to  the  limbo  of  useless  inventions  where  oblivion 
soon  engulfs  it. 

Let  us  now  review  a  few  specimens  of  the  best  type 
of  our  modern  slang.  But  perhaps  it  is  safer  simply 
to  mention  the  alleged  slang  and  not  undertake  to 
decide  which  of  these  expressions  are  slang  and  which 
standard  English.  For  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  trace 
the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  legitimate  technical- 
ity of  a  given  craft  or  profession  and  polite  slang. 
For  instance,  are  corner,  bull,  bear  and  slump,  so 
familiar  in  financial  parlance,  mere  technical  phrase- 
ology or  slang  ?  How  is  one  to  classify  such  political 
terms  as  mugwump,  buncombe,  gerrymander,  scala- 
wag, henchman,  log-rolling,  pulling  the  wires,  ma- 
chine, slate  and  to  take  the  stump  ?  If  these  are  mere 
technical  terms,  surely  boycott,  cab,  humbug,  boom 
and  blizzard  have  passed  beyond  the  narrow  bounds 
of  technicality  and  are  verging  on  that  dubious  bor- 
derland between  slang  and  standard  English.  Fur- 
thermore, are  swell,  fad,  crank,  spook  and  stogy  to 
be  considered  slang  or  good  English  ?  Each  of  these 
terms  is  supported  by  the  authority  of  some  of  our 


in  ®ur  OBnglfci)  %ptttb  125 

best  writers.  Swell,  to  cite  only  one  example,  is 
bolstered  up  by  the  authority  of  Thackeray,  who  in 
his  "Adventures  of  Philip"  writes:  "They  narrate 
to  him  the  advent  and  departure  of  the  lady  in  the 
swell  carriage,  the  mother  of  the  young  swell  with 
the  flower  in  his  buttonhole."  Again,  how  is  one  to 
regard  fake,  splurge,  sand,  swagger,  blooming 
(idiot),  to  go  it  blind,  to  catch  on,  and  that  vast  host 
of  similar  racy  and  vivid  phrases  which,  if  slang, 
still  do  duty  for  classic  English  in  common  parlance  ? 
A  glance  at  some  of  our  slang  idioms  shows  that 
they  are  borrowed  from  the  cant  of  various  crafts 
and  callings.  Some  are  borrowed  from  the  technical 
vocabulary  of  the  stage,  some  are  taken  over  from 
the  phraseology  of  sporting  life,  while  some  bear  the 
stamp  of  various  other  vocations.  Take  as  an  illus- 
tration fake,  or,  better  still,  greenhorn,  which  has 
forced  its  way  to  recognition  in  standard  English. 
At  first  greenhorn  was  applied  figuratively  to  a  cow 
or  deer  or  other  horned  animal  when  its  horns  are 
immature.  In  the  "Towneley  Mysteries"  it  is  ap- 
plied to  an  ox,  for  example.  Later  it  was  extended 
to  signify  an  inexperienced  person,  or  one  who,  from 
lack  of  acquaintance  with  the  ways  of  the  world,  is 
easily  imposed  upon.  The  former  application  where 
the  term  was  used  in  allusion  to  an  immature  horned 
animal  is  a  legitimate  metaphor.  The  latter  use 
when  applied  to  an  inexperienced  person  was  doubt- 
less recognized  as  an  extension  of  the  metaphor  and 
as  slang.  But  the  word  filled  a  need  in  the  vocabu- 
lary and  was  at  length  admitted  into  the  guild  of 
good  usage.  Another  illustration  is  furnished  by 


at 


mascot,  a  recent  importation  from  the  French.  This 
word  originated  in  gambler's  cant  and  signified  a 
talisman,  a  fetish,  something  designed  to  bestow 
good  luck  upon  its  possessor.  The  term,  despite  its 
unsavory  association,  somehow  has  commended  itself 
to  popular  favor  and  now  seems  not  to  offend  the  most 
refined  taste.  Slump,  though  not  so  hackneyed,  may 
serve  as  an  example  in  point  also.  As  a  provincial- 
ism this  word  denotes  soft  swampy  ground,  or  melt- 
ing snow  and  slush.  Later  by  transferred  meaning  it 
came  to  characterize  in  the  financial  world  the  melt- 
ing away  of  prices,  as  a  slump  in  the  market  —  a  vivid 
picture  which  is  more  interesting  as  a  linguistic  phe- 
nomenon than  as  an  actual  fact. 

The  history  of  slang  teaches  that  words,  like  peo- 
ple, may  be  divided  into  two  general  classes,  high 
and  low,  or  refined  and  uncouth.  "In  language  as 
in  life,"  as  Professor  Dowden  puts  it,  "there  is,  so 
to  speak,  an  aristocracy  and  a  commonalty,  words 
with  a  heritage  of  dignity,  words  which  have  been 
ennobled,  and  a  rabble  of  words  which  are  excluded 
from  positions  of  honor  and  trust."  Now,  some 
writers  select  only  the  choice  and  noble  words  to 
convey  their  ideas,  leaving  the  coarse  and  vulgar 
words,  terms  without  a  pedigree,  as  it  were,  in  the 
bottom  of  the  inkhorn,  for  those  who  desire  them. 
Other  writers  again  have  less  cultured  tastes  and  do 
not  scruple  to  employ  now  and  then  plebeian  words, 
to  set  forth  their  thoughts  and  feelings. 

One  might  suppose  on  first  blush  that  the  diction- 
ary ought  to  be  a  safe  guide  in  the  choice  of  words. 
A  moment's  reflection,  however,  is  sufficient  to  con- 


in  fl)iit  (English  Speed)  127 

vince  one  that  the  dictionary  can  not  be  relied  upon 
always  for  this  desired  knowledge.  It  is  the  lexicog- 
rapher's office  to  make  a  complete  register  of  the  vo- 
cabulary of  the  language;  and  so,  to  make  his  work 
exhaustive,  he  frequently  records  many  slang  words 
in  his  dictionary.  Yet  the  practise  of  our  diction- 
ary-makers, it  must  be  admitted,  varies  widely  in 
this  respect,  some  being  far  more  exclusive  than  oth- 
ers. Our  former  lexicographers,  as  for  instance  Doc- 
tor Johnson,  exercised  a  stricter  censorship  than  is 
the  custom  at  present.  But  it  is  not  correct  always 
to  infer,  in  the  case  of  an  unrecorded  word  of  ques- 
tionable usage,  that  the  author  excluded  it  of  set  pur- 
pose. It  may  possibly  be  omitted  from  oversight.  It 
seems  to  be  the  custom  of  our  lexicographers  now  to 
make  as  complete  a  record  as  possible  of  all  polite 
slang,  but  to  brand  it  "slang."  This  plan  is,  of 
course,  altogether  distasteful  to  the  pedants  and 
pedagogues  who  make  a  fruitless  effort  to  curb  and 
check  the  vocabulary  of  a  language  by  rejecting  all 
words  of  questionable  usage.  Whatever  is  not  in 
harmony  with  established  usage,  whatever  is  not  au- 
thorized by  standard  speech,  the  pedants  and  half- 
educated  utterly  reject.  Now,  heretofore  our  dic- 
tionary-makers have  not  been  entirely  above  and  be- 
yond this  narrow  and  circumscribed  view.  It  was 
this  fact  that  prompted  Lowell,  in  the  preface  to  his 
famous  "Biglow  Papers/'  to  express  himself  in  these 
vigorous  words:  "There  is  death  in  the  dictionary; 
and  where  language  is  too  strictly  limited  by  con- 
vention, the  ground  for  expression  to  grow  in  is  lim- 


€Hte0tiott0  at  300  tie 


ited  also,  and  we  get  a  potted  literature  —  Chinese 
dwarfs  instead  of  healthy  trees." 

The  truth  is,  it  does  not  fall  legitimately  within 
the  province  of  the  lexicographer  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion whether  a  polite  slang  term  of  recognized  fitness 
and  utility  should  be  deemed  good  English  or  not/ 
ISTo  man,  however  competent  a  scholar  he  may  be, 
has  the  right  to  determine  the  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  our  language.  Yet  such  a  practise  means 
this  in  the  last  analysis.  There  are  not  a  few  words 
and  idioms  in  English  that  have  neither  logic  nor 
reason  to  commend  them,  but  are  the  product  of 
analogy,  as  it,  its  and  you,  instead  of  the  strictly  cor- 
rect hit,  his  and  ye,  to  use  a  familiar  example;  and 
yet  these  analogical  formations,  which  at  first  were 
mere  slang,  long  ago  drove  our  proper  pronouns  from 
the  field.  This  change  took  place  in  the  last  two  or 
three  centuries,  and  that,  too,  in  the  very  face  of  the 
vaunted  authority  of  Shakespeare  and  the  King 
James  Version.  No  doubt  the  pedants  and  purists 
opposed  this  change  as  utterly  illogical  and  contrary 
to  the  natural  order  of  development  and  growth  of 
our  English  speech;  but  they  were  gradually  borne 
down.  It  is  the  vast  body  of  those  who  use  the  lan- 
guage, the  people,  not  the  lexicographers  and  schol- 
ars solely  or  chiefly,  who  are  the  final  arbiters  in  a 
matter  of  this  kind.  It  is  the  law  of  speech  as  regis- 
tered in  the  usage  of  those  who  employ  the  language 
that  decides  ultimately  whether  a  given  phrase  shall 
survive  or  perish;  and  this  is  done  so  unconsciously 
withal  that  the  people  are  not  aware  that  they  are 
sealing  the  destiny  of  some  particular  vocable,  This 


In  2>ut  <ZEttslt0f)  Speed)  129 

silent,  indefinable,  resistless  force  we  call  the  genius 
of  the  language. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  spirit  of  this  paper  will  not 
be  misunderstood.  The  article,  let  is  be  distinctly 
and  emphatically  stated,  is  not  intended  as  a  brief 
for  slang — far  from  it.  It  is  written  simply  to  call 
attention  anew  to  the  fact  that  slang  is  not  to  be 
absolutely  condemned  as  the  main  source  of  corrup- 
tion of  our  speech,  as  some  assert,  but  that,  contrari- 
wise, it  is  an  important  factor  in  the  growth  of  our 
vernacular  and  serves — at  least,  the  best  of  it — a  use- 
ful purpose  in  repairing  the  resulting  waste  which 
necessarily  occurs  in  English  as  in  every  spoken  lan- 
guage. 


130  dilutions  at 


STANDARD   ENGLISH— HOW  IT   AROSE 
AND  HOW  IT  IS  MAINTAINED. 

Much  is  said  and  written  nowadays  as  to  the 
prevalence  of  slang  and  bad  English.  It  is  a  matter 
of  common  regret  both  in  academic  circles  and  else- 
where that  our  English  tongue  is  not  now  spoken  and 
written  with  its  traditional  purity  and  propriety. 
As  to  the  truth  of  this  complaint  there  is  probably 
some  ground  for  doubt,  but  it  is  not  proposed  here 
to  discuss  this  question.  The  mere  fact  of  the  exist- 
ence of  slang  and  bad  English  implies  that  there  is  a 
norm,  a  standard  of  propriety  of  English  speech,  to 
which  polite  usage  ever  aims  to  conform.  It  is  this 
standard  that  ratines  a  given  idiom  or  locution  and 
stamps  it  with  the  hall-mark  of  propriety,  thus  estab- 
lishing its  usage  as  approved.  Any  signal  departure 
from  this  standard  is  at  once  branded  a  solecism  and 
consequently  recognized  as  a  provincialism,  or  slang. 
It  is  here  proposed  to  inquire  what  constiutes  stand- 
ard English,  how  it  arose,  how  it  is  maintained. 

The  science  of  language  comes  to  our  aid  in  this 
inquiry  and  teaches  us  how  a  language  grows  and  de- 
velops. Before  the  dawn  of  this  new  science  it  was 
supposed  that  the  standard  speech  was  determined  by 
court  usage  as  reflected  in  the  language  of  the  ruling 


in  flDut  (English  Speedb  131 

class  and  the  courtiers.  This  select  body  of  people 
was  believed  to  set  the  fashion  in  speech,  as  in  other 
things,  and  the  educated  and  cultured  of  the  coun- 
try were  thought  to  follow  their  lead  as  a  matter  of 
course.  The  common  people,  according  to  this  the- 
ory, accepted  as  final  the  standard  set  by  the  nobility, 
and  all  divergences  therefrom  were  held  to  be  the 
result  of  ignorance.  ~Not  only  was  the  court  dia- 
lect regarded  as  indicating  absolute  propriety  of 
usage,  but  it  was  supposed  to  be  the  original  form  of 
the  vernacular  speech,  which  the  masses  were  ex- 
pected to  imitate  as  perfectly  as  they  could,  in  their 
habits  of  speaking  and  writing.  The  court  itself, 
likewise  holding  this  view,  did  not  hesitate  to  con- 
demn and  stigmatize  every  departure  in  speech  from 
the  received  dialect  as  a  glaring  solecism  which  made 
for  the  corruption  and  ultimate  disintegration  of  the 
language. 

This  is  now  an  exploded  theory.  Modern  philology 
has  demonstrated  beyond  a  doubt  that  such  an  as- 
sumption is  utterly  false  and  untrue  to  nature.  For 
philology  teaches  us  clearly  that  the  urban  dialect, 
far  from  being  the  original  tongue  of  which  the 
rural  dialects  are  mere  corruptions,  was  itself  once 
only  a  provincial,  barbarous  form  of  speech, — a  lingo 
just  as  primitive  and  just  as  uncultivated  as  any  of 
its  fellows, — and  that  its  supremacy  is  the  result,  not 
of  any  intrinsic  superiority  over  its  rivals,  but  of 
the  political  predominance  of  those  who  employed  it 
as  their  vernacular.  Those  who  used  the  urban  dia- 
lect, by  dint  of  their  own  intelligence  and  skill,  sur- 
passed their  rivals  in  the  race  for  the  primacy  and 


132  €Hte0tfott0  at  300iie 

were  the  first,  therefore,  to  establish  the  ascendency 
of  their  community.  Their  supremacy  once  estab- 
lished, the  inhabitants  of  the  more  highly  organized 
community  proceeded  at  once  to  impose  their  rule 
upon  their  weaker  neighbors.  The  latter,  being  un- 
able to  resist  the  more  powerful  and  resourceful  com- 
munity, soon  forfeited  their  independence  and  lost 
their  identity  and  were  gradually  absorbed.  It  is 
thus  that  political  pre-eminence  of  a  primitive  com- 
munity over  its  rivals  paves  the  way  for  the  growth 
and  development  of  its  speech,  which  is  gradually  ex- 
tended over  the  conquered  until  it  finally  supplants 
its  fellows  and  itself  becomes  supreme  as  the  ac- 
cepted language  of  the  victorious  and  the  vanquished 
alike. 

The  philologists  explain  the  several  stages  of  the 
development  of  a  language,  distinctly  marking  off 
each,  from  the  crude  local  patois  to  the  highly  de- 
veloped and  polished  speech  of  a  cultured  nation. 
The  primitive  tongue  of  a  local  tribe  is  termed  a 
patois,  a  rudimentary  speech  ill  adapted  to  the  com- 
munication of  the  simplest  ideas.  If  a  patois  grows 
and  develops  so  as  to  become  available  in  vocabulary 
and  syntax  for  the  expression  of  thought,  it  is  called 
a  dialect.  When  a  local  patois  advances  to  the  dia- 
lect stage,  there  is  a  marked  tendency,  on  the  part  of 
those  employing  it,  to  crush  out  its  rivals  by  con- 
quest and  assimilation.  Consequently  the  triumphant 
dialect  then  becomes  the  only  speech  of  a  linguistic 
province,  and  is  itself  perhaps  somewhat  modified  by 
the  conflict  from  which  it  has  emerged  victorious. 

Now,  there  may  be  several  independent  linguistic 


in  ffl)ur  <Cn0Ii0Si)  ©peecfi  133 


provinces.  If  so,  a  hard  struggle  for  supremacy  fol- 
lows. Eventually  some  one  of  the  provinces  suc- 
ceeds in  establishing  its  political  mastery  over  the 
others,  and  then  begins  the  process  of  linguistic  ex- 
pansion and  assimilation.  Thus  the  dialect  of  the 
most  powerful  province  or  district  is  at  length  made 
the  speech  of  the  entire  people.  In  this  manner  not 
only  all  the  local  patois,  but  all  the  competing  dia- 
lects also,  are  either  absorbed,  or  are  crushed  out  by 
the  dialect  of  the  dominant  political  community. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  process  is  furnished 
in  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  Latin  tongue. 
This  dominant  language  which  still  survives,  more  or 
less  disguised,  in  the  speech  of  a  large  part  of  Europe, 
as  well  as  in  the  speech  of  Latin  America,  and  which 
has  so  generously  enriched  our  own  English  tongue, 
as  Whitney  tells  us  in  his  "Language  and  the  Study 
of  Language,"  was  the  vernacular  less  than  twenty- 
five  centuries  ago,  of  an  insignificant  district  in  cen- 
tral Italy,  the  inhabitants  of  which  at  that  remote 
day  were  but  little  above  savages.  History  is  silent 
as  to  when  and  how  this  tribe  found  their  way  into 
that  region  of  the  Italian  peninsula.  Their  speech 
was  only  one  of  a  group  of  related  dialects,  "descend- 
ants and  joint  representatives  of  an  older  tongue, 
spoken  by  the  first  immigrants,  which  had  grown 
apart  by  the  effect  of  the  usual  dissimilating  proc- 
esses." There  still  survive  remains  of  at  least  two 
of  the  rival  dialects,  Oscan  and  Umbrian,  which 
throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  prehistoric  period  of 
Italian  speech.  The  Latin  dialect  was  threatened  on 
the  north  by  the  Etruscan,  the  vernacular  of  a  civil- 


134 jfflXuegtfottg  at 

ized  people  dwelling  beyond  the  Tiber;  and  it  was 
likewise  menaced  on  the  south  by  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, spoken  by  the  Hellenic  colonies,  long  before 
settled  in  southern  Italy  and  Sicily.  Both  of  these 
tongues  are  assumed  to  have  been  superior  in  intrin- 
sic character  to  the  crude,  primitive  dialect  of  the 
early  Romans.  But  the  rudimentary  Latin  speech 
spread  pari  passu  with  the  extension  of  the  Roman 
dominion.  As  the  Roman  arms  brought  one  Italian 
district  after  another  under  Roman  sway,  the  tongue 
of  that  mighty  people  grew  apace  and  diffused  itself 
throughout  the  whole  of  Italy,  gradually  absorbing 
all  the  rival  dialects.  Finally  all  the  dialects  of  Italy 
were  forced  to  acknowledge  the  predominance  of  the 
speech  of  the  conquering  city  on  the  Tiber, — from 
the  uncultivated  Gaulish  of  the  north  to  the  facile 
and  polished  Greek  of  the  south.  Thus  all  Italy 
came  at  last  to  have  one  uniform  language,  to  wit, 
Latin. 

Yet  there  did  not  result,  after  all,  absolute  uni- 
formity of  speech  throughout  the  whole  of  Italy.  For 
though  the  rival  dialects  had  one  by  one  given  place 
to  the  triumphant  advance  of  the  all-absorbing  Latin, 
still  in  the  remote  rural  districts  relics  of  the  native 
local  dialects  tenaciously  maintained  their  foothold 
in  the  popular  speech ;  and  like  paganism  before  the 
advance  of  Christianity,  the  local  dialects  were  loth 
to  relinquish  their  strongholds  in  the  inaccessible 
country  districts.  Traces  of  the  vanquished  tongues 
were  still  to  be  discerned  in  the  varying  local  dialects 
throughout  the  remote  parts  of  the  Italian  peninsula. 
Nor  was  the  common  speech  of  Italy  everywhere  cur- 


in  flDut  dfrtgifeft  %ytttb  135 

rent  the  pure  classic  Latin  of  Cicero  and  Vergil.  On 
the  contrary,  the  vernacular  of  the  ancient  Romans, 
by  and  large,  was  a  far  less  polished  and  graceful 
idiom,  "containing  already  the  germs  of  many  of  the 
changes  exhibited  by  the  modern  Italian  and  the 
other  Romanic  tongues." 

A  second  shining  example  is  found  in  the  history 
of  the  rise  of  the  French  language.  This  marvelously 
lucid  tongue  had  its  origin  in  a  little  island  in  the 
Seine,  at  present  the  heart  of  the  great  city  of  Paris. 
The  language  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  tiny  isle, 
to  be  sure,  was  at  first  a  rude  lingo  no  whit  superior 
to  the  various  patois  of  Romanized  Gaul.  But  the 
inhabitants  of  that  vigorous  district  soon  gained  the 
political  ascendency  over  their  neighbors  and  grad- 
ually extended  their  speech  throughout  the  whole  of 
Ile-de-France.  The  upshot  was  that  the  numerous 
local  patois  speedily  lost  caste,  sinking  to  a  lower  and 
lower  level,  till  they  all  finally  disappeared,  and  the 
dialect  of  Paris  came  to  be  recognized  as  the  official 
language  of  the  entire  central  part  of  France.  But 
there  were  also  other  provinces  of  France  besides  that 
of  Ile-de-France.  Normandy,  Provence  and  Bur- 
gundy had  meantime  risen  to  marked  political  dis- 
tinction, and  the  speech  of  each  of  these  provinces  in 
due  course  attained  to  the  dignity  of  a  dialect  with  a 
considerable  body  of  literature.  But  no  one  dialect 
was  supreme.  However,  in  the  process  of  time  the 
people  of  central  France  established  their  pre-emi- 
nence, extending  their  dominion  over  the  entire 
country.  Thus  the  sister  provinces  were,  in  turn, 
brought  under  the  sway  of  the  predominant  Ile-de- 


136  £tiie0tiott0  at  300ue 

France  which  imposed  its  dialect  upon  its  subdued 
rivals.  In  this  manner  the  Parisian  dialect  spread 
over  the  whole  of  France  and  was  destined  speedily 
to  become  the  accepted  speech  of  the  country.  Nat- 
urally enough,  as  the  Parisian  dialect  gained  the  as- 
cendency, the  Provengal,  the  Norman  and  the  Bur- 
gundian  dialect  each  fell  into  decay  and  finally  ceased 
to  exist  as  a  spoken  dialect,  being  preserved  only  in 
certain  literary  monuments. 

Now,  the  Parisian  dialect  did  not  attain  to  the 
honor  of  the  standard  language  of  France  without  a 
long  and  hard  struggle.  During  this  struggle  the 
language  was  in  process  of  development  and  under- 
went some  changes  by  attrition  and  contact  with  its 
strenuous  rivals.  In  the  conflict  the  Parisian  dialect 
sloughed  off  some  of  its  unessentials,  its  eccentricities 
of  speech  in  the  form  of  inflexions  and  syntax  and 
came  forth  somewhat  simplified  in  its  grammar.  At 
the  same  time  it  borrowed  not  a  few  idioms  and 
phrases  from  its  defeated  rivals,  thus  enriching  its 
vocabulary  and  simplifying  its  syntax  by  contact 
with  the  decadent  dialects. 

Thus  arose  modern  French — a  language  beauti- 
fully transparent  and  precise  and  almost  as  untram- 
meled  by  inflections  as  English  is  and  as  admirably 
adapted  for  the  conveyance  of  nice  distinctions  and 
fine  shades  of  thought.  It  appears,  then,  that  mod- 
ern French  is  developed  from  one  of  the  pristine 
provincial  dialects  which  probably  enjoyed  no  su- 
perior advantage  over  its  sister  dialects,  but  which 
owes  its  success  as  a  literary  medium  to  the  happy 
circumstance  that  it  was  the  vernacular  of  the  most 


in  2Dut  OEnglteJ)  ^peecft  137 

important  political  province.  Furthermore,  it  is 
manifest  that  the  Provencal,  Norman  and  Burgun- 
dian  dialects  are  in  no  sense  a  corrupt  form  of  the 
standard  speech.  They  are  rather  kindred  dialects 
which  by  sheer  force  of  political  conditions  were  out- 
stripped in  the  race  for  the  distinction  of  being 
chosen  as  the  national  language. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  history  of  the  English 
language.  The  development  of  the  English  tongue  is 
quite  similar,  if  not,  indeed,  parallel,  to  the  story  of 
Latin  and  French.  It  is  in  order  to  give  here  a  brief 
survey  of  the  origin  and  development  of  the  Eng- 
lish speech. 

In  the  earliest  period  of  our  language  it  is  as- 
sumed that  there  were  numerous  patois  spoken  by 
the  Jutes,  the  Angles  and  the  Saxons  who  had  set- 
tled in  Britain  as  rovers  and  adventurers.  True,  we 
have  no  record  preserved  of  these  several  patois;  but 
philology  warrants  the  inference  that  they  existed. 
In  the  earliest  stage  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  speech  of 
which  history  furnishes  a  record,  these  various  patois 
had  already  given  rise  to  some  three  or  four  distinct 
dialects  commonly  designated,  according  to  their  re- 
spective geographical  positions,  Kentish,  Southern, 
Midland,  and  Northern.  There  are  documents  ex- 
tant of  each  of  these  early  English  dialects  which 
constitute  our  Anglo-Saxon  literature.  Now,  each 
of  these  dialects  (if  Kentish  is  included  in  the 
Southern  dialect)  marks  a  separate  period  in  the 
political  history  of  Teutonic  England.  In  the  north- 
ern part  of  England,  then  known  as  Northumbria, 
where  the  Angles  settled  after  migrating  from  the 


138  £Xue0tions  at 

Continent,  the  Anglian  dialect  was  first  pre-eminent 
as  the  literary  language.    This  was  during  the  eighth 
century  when  the  leading  writers  in  that  dialect  were 
Caedmon  and  the  Venerable  Bede.     In  those  early 
times  the  Angles  appear  to  have  extended  their  con- 
trol over  Mercia,  too,  even  down  to  the  northern 
banks  of  the  Thames.     However,  this  district  later 
had  a  local  dialect  of  its  own,  apart  from  the  North- 
umbrian,  and  its  chief  literary  monuments   are   a 
translation  of  the  Psalter  and  a  version  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  designated  the  "Rushworth."     The  part  of 
Britain  south  of  the  Thames  and  lying  toward  the 
west  was  settled  by  the  Saxons.     Their  dialect  which 
scholars  call  the  West-Saxon  was  quite  unlike  the 
Anglian  dialect;   and  it  is  distinguished  above  its 
fellows  as  the  dialect  in  which  the  bulk  of  our  earliest 
literature  is  written.      The  West-Saxon,   therefore, 
from  the  grammatical  point  of  view  is  by  far  the 
most  important  of  our  early  English  dialects,  and  is 
recognized  by  scholars  as  the  standard  for  inflection 
and  idiom.     But  the  pre-eminence  of  West-Saxon 
was  of  later  date  than  that  of  the  Northumbrian  dia- 
lect.    From  the  death  of  Bede  in  734  to  the  acces- 
sion of  King  Alfred  in  871,  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  no  one  of  the  English  dialects  seems  to  have  been 
supreme.     However,  from  the  accession  of  Ecgberht 
in  802  the  West-Saxon  had  been  gradually  gaining 
its  ascendency  which  was  of  course  completed  in  the 
days  of  King  Alfred.     This  good  king  signalized  his 
reign  by  a  great  revival  of  learning,  in  which  he  him- 
self was  the  leading  figure.     He  summoned  to  his 
court  an  earnest  and  enthusiastic  body  of  scholars 


in  fl>ur  (English  ©peecf)  139 

from  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  himself  set 
them  a  worthy  example  of  industry  and  scholarship 
by  translating  into  the  vernacular  Pope  Gregory's 
aPastoral  Care/'  Boethius's  "Consolations  of  Philo- 
sophy" and  Orosius's  "Chronicle." 

After  the  death  of  King  Alfred  there  was  a  sad 
decline  in  literature.  But  the  prowess  and  overlord- 
ship  of  Wessex  had  made  the  West-Saxon  dialect 
the  standard  literary  language  of  England;  and  it 
continued  so  till  the  Norman  Conquest  destroyed  the 
political  prestige  of  that  kingdom  and  consequently 
deprived  that  dialect  of  its  evident  advantage  as  the 
official  language.  While  the  West-Saxon  dialect  was 
recognized,  it  is  true,  as  the  literary  language,  still  it 
did  not  entirely  supplant  the  Anglian  and  the  Mer- 
cian, both  of  which  continued  to  be  spoken  and,  to 
some  extent,  also  written.  But  it  is  a  significant  fact 
that  the  earlier  Northumbrian  poetry  was  translated 
into  this  southern  speech  and  is  preserved  to  us  only 
in  the  West-Saxon  version. 

West-Saxon  lost  its  supremacy  as  the  standard 
language  when,  as  a  result  of  the  Conquest,  Norman 
French  was  adopted  by  the  ruling  class  as  the  culti- 
vated speech  of  the  realm.  Still,  "the  native  tongue," 
to  quote  Professor  Lounsbury  (History  of  the  Eng- 
lish Language),  "continued  to  be  spoken  by  the  great 
majority  of  the  population,  but  it  went  out  of  use 
as  the  language  of  high  culture.  The  educated 
classes,  whether  lay  or  ecclesiastical,  preferred  to 
write  either  in  Latin  or  French — the  latter  steadily 
tending  to  become  more  and  more  the  language  of 
literature  as  well  as  of  polite  society."  The  result 


140  £Xue0tion0  at  3fe0ue 

was  that  West- Saxon,  being  supplanted  as  the  liter- 
'ary  language  by  Norman  French,  lost  prestige  and 
was  reduced  ultimately  to  the  level  of  its  sister  dia- 
lects, Anglian  and  Mercian.  After  the  loss  of  West- 
Saxon  ascendency  no  one  dialect  was  again  pre-emi- 
nent in  England  till  the  fourteenth  century.  For 
two  centuries  prior  to  that  date  the  several  provin- 
cial dialects  were  employed  in  their  respective  terri- 
tories; and  each  had  an  equal  chance  of  becoming 
standard  English.  An  author,  therefore,  was  free 
to  use  his  own  local  speech.  To  be  sure,  French  was 
the  accepted  language  at  court  and  in  high  society; 
but  this  foreign  tongue  at  no  time  enjoyed  such  a 
commanding  position  as  to  threaten  the  extinction 
of  the  native  dialects. 

Indeed,  the  relation  of  the  Norman  French  to  the 
English  dialects  has  given  rise  to  so  much  popular 
misconception  and  error  that  it  seems  worth  while,  at 
this  juncture,  to  indicate  the  true  relation  explicitly. 
When  the  Normans  conquered  England,  as  the  phil- 
ologists tell  us,  they  did  not  seek  to  impose  their 
language  upon  the  English  people.  Such  a  policy 
would  have  been  very  unwise  for  obvious  reasons, 
and  would  have  produced  untold  trouble  and  conflict 
between  the  two  races.  The  Normans  did  not  de- 
spise the  English  tongue.  They  were  content  to  let 
the  natives  speak  their  several  English  dialects  just 
as  before  the  Conquest.  Of  course,  the  Normans 
retained  their  own  French  patois  and  had  no  expec- 
tation of  abandoning  it  in  favor  of  English,  as  they 
had  once  before  given  up  their  Scandinavian  ver- 
nacular for  French.  Yet  in  consequence  of  the  over- 


in  2Dut  Cnglfef)  Speecft  141 

whelming  preponderance  of  the  English  natives  over 
their  Norman  invaders  it  was  inevitable,  in  the  event 
of  a  struggle  for  supremacy  between  the  two  tongues, 
that  the  French  should  be  forced  to  the  wall.  For- 
tunately, no  such  conflict  was  designed  by  either  race, 
and  it  is  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  neither  peo- 
ple ever  seriously  contemplated  such  a  possibility. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  Norman  Conquest  did 
not  tend  to  destroy  the  English  tongue  in  Britain,  as 
it  was  once  the  fashion  to  teach.  The  Norman  Con- 
quest did,  however,  interrupt  the  normal  literary  tra- 
dition of  the  English  speech.  For  at  the  time  of  the 
Battle  of  Hastings,  as  has  been  intimated,  the  West- 
Saxon  dialect  was  easily  the  foremost  of  the  English 
provincial  dialects  and  seemed  destined  to  estab- 
lish its  claim  as  being  the  national  speech.  But 
the  Conquest  interrupted  this  natural  process  and 
drove  West-Saxon  from  its  coign  of  vantage,  re- 
ducing it  to  the  level  of  the  rival  provincial  dialects. 
French  being,  of  course,  the  language  of  the  court 
and  the  official  tongue  generally,  the  West-Saxon  dia- 
lect no  longer  offered  any  special  inducement  to  in- 
tending authors  to  employ  it,  as  had  been  the  case 
ever  since  the  days  of  King  Alfred.  Hence  writers 
simply  used  their  respective  local  dialects,  there  be- 
ing no  recognized  standard  speech. 

Norman  French  and  the  several  English  dialects 
were  now  spoken  side  by  side,  and  continued  so  for 
quite  a  long  while.  What  more  natural,  therefore, 
than  that  each  tongue  should  exercise  some  influence 
upon  the  other,  however  slight  ?  It  is  usually  stated 
that  French  influence  hastened  the  decay  of  English 


142  €iue0tton0  at  300110 

inflections.  But  the  English  had  begun  to  lose  its 
inflections  even  before  the  coming  of  the  Normans 
and  to  rely  more  largely  upon  position  and  preposi- 
tions to  indicate  case  relations.  No  doubt,  French 
influence  accelerated  this  tendency.  French  influ- 
ence was  also  a  factor  in  modifying  the  idiom  and 
vocabulary  of  the  English  tongue.  But  each  lan- 
guage, as  Anglo-Norman  students  assure  us,  reacted 
upon  the  other  mutually;  and  the  speech  of  the  in- 
vaders was  influenced  by  the  English  of  the  natives 
just  as  much  as  English  was  influenced  by  French. 

The  truth  is,  the  influence  of  Norrnan  French 
upon  English  was  not  so  important  in  itself,  as  far 
as  any  immediate  effect  was  concerned ;  but  it  paved 
the  way  for  the  subsequent  influence  of  Parisian 
French  which  swept  like  a  mighty  tidal  wave  over 
England,  leaving  a  considerable  residuum  and  de- 
posit in  our  speech  alike  in.  idiom  and  in  vocabulary. 
Norman  influence  upon  our  tongue  was,  therefore, 
chiefly  indirect,  not  direct.  When  Anjou  was  sub- 
dued by  Philip  Augustus  of  France  in  1204,  Nor- 
mandy was  forfeited  by  the  English  crown  and  from 
that  day  Norman  French  influence  on  English  was 
practically  at  an  end.  But  the  Parisian  dialect  soon 
extended  its  sphere  into  Britain  and  began  to  exert 
a  decided  influence  upon  the  English  speech.  In  the 
fourteenth  century  English  scholars  industriously 
turned  their  attention  to  French  literature,  either 
adapting  or  closely  translating  many  specimens. 
Norman  French  now  gave  place  to  the  Parisian  dia- 
lect which  had  established  itself  as  the  standard 
speech  for  all  the  provinces  of  France.  English 


in  SDut  OBngH0&  ©peec&  143 

scholars  who  crossed  the  Channel,  as  many  now  did, 
learned  the  French  of  Paris;  and  when  they  re- 
turned to  their  native  shores  of  Albion,  they  brought 
with  them  the  best  French  of  Paris.  Having  lost 
caste,  the  Norman  dialect  was  no  longer  esteemed 
fashionable  in  polite  society  and  consequently  it  fell 
to  the  lot  of  Parisian  French  to  honor  the  heavy 
drafts  which  the  English  tongue  made  during  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  upon  the  French 
language,  for  the  enrichment  and  augmentation  of 
its  vocabulary.  Nor,  indeed,  did  the  French  impor- 
tations into  our  speech  cease  even  then.  They  con- 
tinued, only  with  slightly  diminished  activity,  dur- 
ing the  Elizabethan  and  succeeding  ages,  down  to 
the  present  time.  However,  during  the  last  few  cen- 
turies our  vernacular  has  not  borrowed  so  copiously 
from  that  source,  although  we  still  draw  heavily  on 
French  in  our  art  parlance. 

Yet  despite  the  French  invasion,  English  held  its 
own  as  the  vernacular  of  the  people,  yielding  but 
very  little  ground,  except  in  its  vocabulary,  to  the 
foreign  tongue.  So  far  from  retreating  before  the 
vigorous  onslaught  of  French  influence,  our  sturdy 
English  speech  actually  advanced  its  position  and 
succeeded  in  driving  French  from  its  former  strong- 
hold of  the  court  and  high  society.  For  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Normans  who  were  overwhelmingly 
in  the  minority,  seeing  that  they  were  compelled  by 
sheer  force  of  circumstances  to  speak  English  also, 
gradually  abandoned  French  as  their  mother-tongue 
and  were  finally  content  to  use  the  language  which 
was  understood  by  everybody  in  the  kingdom.  Thus 


144  £Xue0tiott»  at  3J0gue 

the  English  vernacular  at  last  triumphed  over 
French  as  the  language  even  of  the  governing  class 
in  England;  and  French  fell  into  disuse  and  sur- 
vived as  a  spoken  tongue  only  in  polite  society  and 
among  scholars,  as  an  accomplishment. 

So  much  for  the  true  relation  of  French  to  Eng- 
lish in  the  history  of  our  speech.  But  to  return  to 
the  question  of  the  rise  of  the  standard  literary  lan- 
guage in  England.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  from 
1066  to  1300  there  was  no  recognized  standard  of 
English  speech.  In  the  existing  confusion  of  pro- 
vincial dialects  there  was  felt  an  urgent  need  for  a 
uniform  speech  throughout  the  entire  country.  The 
perplexity  resulting  from  the  babel  of  unfamiliar 
English  dialects  in  use  at  the  time  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  printing  was  keenly  felt  by  the  people  them- 
selves, but  by  none  more  than  by  Caxton,  who  set  up 
the  first  printing  press  in  England.  ]STow,  Caxton 
himself  used  London  English,  as  a  rule.  But  he  ex- 
perienced no  little  embarrassment  when  he  began  to 
print  books,  because  he  was  uncertain  as  to  which 
dialect  he  should  employ.  In  the  prologue  to  his 
version  of  Vergil's  Aeneid  he  freely  confesses  his 
inability  to  determine  which  of  the  varying  dialects 
he  should  adopt.  Commenting  on  the  dialectal  dif- 
ferences he  complainingly  remarks:  "And  that  com- 
mon English  that  is  spoken  in  one  shire  varyeth  from 
another.  Insomuch  that  in  my  days  happened  that 
certain  merchants  were  in  a  ship  in  Thames,  for  to 
have  sailed  over  the  sea  into  Zeeland,  and  for  lack 
of  wind  they  tarried  at  the  foreland  and  went  to  land 
for  to  refresh  them.  And  one  of  them  named  Shef- 


fn  flDtir  (Englfel)  §>peedb  145 

field,  a  mercer,  came  into  an  house  and  axed  for 
meat  and  specially  lie  axed  after  eggs;  and  the  good 
wife  answered  that  she  could  speak  no  French.  And 
the  merchant  was  angry,  for  he  could  speak  no 
French,  but  would  have  had  eggs  and  she  understood 
him  not.  And  then  at  last  another  said  that  he 
would  have  eiren;  then  the  good  wife  said  that  she 
understood  him  well.  Lo,  what  should  a  man  in 
these  days  now  write,  eggs  or  eiren?  Certainly  it  is 
hard  to  please  every  man  because  of  diversity  and 
change  of  language." 

This  incident  related  by  Caxton  serves  to  illus- 
trate how  almost  unintelligible  the  southern  dialect 
had  become  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  northern  part 
of  England  in  the  early  fifteenth  century.  The  sev- 
eral dialects  spoken  in  England  had  diverged  so 
much  as  to  result  in  a  serious  handicap  on  trade  and 
a  practical  embargo  on  letters.  The  Northern,  the 
Southern  and  the  Mercian  (the  last  now  split  into 
two  minor  dialects  distinguished  as  east  and  west) 
had  each  risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  literary  language. 
But  no  one  of  them  was  recognized  as  the  triumph- 
ant dialect,  destined  to  vanquish  all  its  rivals  and  to 
establish  its  sway  over  the  entire  country.  At  this 
juncture  circumstances,  somehow,  conspired  to  raise 
the  East  Midland  dialect  to  the  primacy,  enabling  it 
to  extend  itself  over  the  whole  country  as  the  re- 
ceived language,  the  national  speech.  This  dialect 
had  much  to  commend  it  to  favor.  To  begin  with, 
this  dialect  occupied  a  somewhat  central  position  geo- 
graphically and  so  offered  a  compromise  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  extreme  northern  and  southern  por- 


146  CtumiottS  at 

tions  of  England,  whose  dialects  were  so  far  apart. 
In  the  second  place,  East  Midland  was  the  dialect 
of  London,  the  great  commercial  center — the  em- 
porium— of  Great  Britain.  It  was  also  the  dialect 
of  the  famous  university  towns  where  the  flower  of 
the  English  nobility  was  trained.  Furthermore,  it 
was  the  dialect  of  the  Court  and  Parliament  when- 
ever they  spoke  English.  Finally,  it  was  the  dialect 
of  Wycklif  s  version  of  the  Bible  and  of  Chaucer, 
"that  well  of  English  undefiled"  whose  refreshing 
stream  of  song  carried  joy  and  gladness  to  every 
part  of  the  island. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Chaucers'  poetic  genius 
moulded  the  literary  language  of  England.  This  is 
a  pleasant  illusion,  but  not  quite  in  accord  with  the 
facts.  Chaucer,  in  conformity  to  the  custom  of  the 
times,  simply  wrote  in  his  native  dialect.  That  dia- 
lect, it  is  true,  happened  to  be  the  dialect  of  the 
chief  city  of  the  realm  and  of  the  most  powerful 
elements  in  the  state,  the  ruling  class.  It  was  a 
mere  accident  that  Chaucer  spoke  and  wrote  this  same 
dialect  as  his  vernacular.  In  no  sense  did  Chaucer 
create  the  London  dialect.  K"or  did  he  make  it  the 
received  literary  language,  the  standard  speech  of 
the  English  people.  This  dictum  was  once  accepted, 
but  needless  to  add  it  is  now  discredited  by  schol- 
ars. Yet  Chaucer's  influence  as  the  foremost  Eng- 
lish author  of  his  age  was  assuredly  not  without 
weight  in  establishing  the  dialect  of  London  as  the 
standard  literary  language  of  the  kingdom.  It  is  a 
significant  fact  that  this  dialect  (which  was  the  dia- 
lect of  the  Court)  had  attained  the  distinction  of 


in  fl)ur  <ffinsli0f)  ^peecft        "  147 

being  the  literary  language  of  England,  by  the  first 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  though  perhaps  it  was 
a  mere  coincidence  that  this  was  only  a  short  time 
after  Chaucer's  death.  It  is  quite  possible,  yea  prob- 
able, that  the  East  Midland  dialect  would  have  estab- 
lished its  supremacy  as  the  standard  language  of 
England  even  if  Chaucer  had  written  his  works  in 
French,  or  Latin,  or  Scotch.  But  it  is  not  unreason- 
able to  suppose  that  an  author  of  such  rare  and  com- 
manding genius  as  Chaucer  contributed  not  a  little 
to  hasten  the  process  of  the  spread  of  his  native  dia- 
lect and  its  acceptance  as  the  standard  language  of 
the  realm.  The  acknowledged  excellence  of  his 
poetic  works  tended,  no  doubt,  to  stamp  the  dialect 
in  which  they  were  written  as  literary  English  and 
furnished  a  sufficient  guaranty,  in  after  years,  that 
his  language  was  classic  English. 

The  effect  of  the  establishment  of  the  East  Mid- 
land dialect  as  the  standard  language  of  England 
was  soon  observed  in  the  rapid  declension  and  ulti- 
mate disuse  of  all  the  rival  dialects.  For  as  soon 
as  the  dialect  of  London  was  recognized  as  supreme, 
no  author  could  be  expected  to  court  oblivion  by  em- 
ploying any  of  the  decadent  provincial  dialects  as  his 
medium  of  expression.  Hence  all  the  provincial  dia- 
lects hitherto  employed  now  either  fell  into  disuse,  or 
survived  only  as  a  mere  local  patois  without  any  lit- 
erary pretensions — a  rustic  lingo  heard  only  on  the 
lips  of  the  illiterate  and  uncultured.  Such  was  the 
fate  of  the  various  Middle  English  dialects,  Scotch 
only  excepted.  The  Northern  dialect,  or  Scottish, 
seems  to  have  maintained  itself  for  quite  a  consid- 


148  £Xue0tion$  at  300ue 

erable  time.  Indeed,  Scottish  was  recognized  as  the 
standard  language  of  Scotland  as  long  as  that  north- 
ern kingdom  preserved  its  independence.  Down  to 
the  time  of  James  the  First,  therefore,  there  was  a 
dual  standard  in  the  language  of  Great  Britain,  the 
English  of  London  which  was  the  vernacular  of  Eng- 
land and  the  Scottish  of  Edinburgh,  which  was  the 
vernacular  of  Scotland.  In  1603,  upon  the  accession 
of  James  the  First,  the  Scottish  as  a  literary  tongue 
was  abandoned  in  favor  of  standard  English,  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  political  organic  union  of  Scotland  with 
England.  From  that  time  to  the  present  there  has 
been  only  one  standard  English  language  for  Great 
Britain.  Yet  the  language  spoken  in  Scotland  pre- 
serves not  a  few  traces  of  the  old  Scotch  dialect 
mingled  with  standard  English,  which  imparts  to  it 
its  Scotch  characteristics.  This  is  more  particularly 
noticeable  in  the  speech  of  the  common  people  and 
occasionally  in  the  works  of  a  popular  poet  like 
Burns,  although  his  language  contains  very  few 
strictly  Scotch  words. 

It  has  been  shown  how  standard  English  was  en- 
riched in  vocabulary  and  idiom  by  contact  with  the 
French  language.  It  is  to  the  Norman  Conquest  that 
our  speech  is  largely  indebted  for  its  double  vocabu- 
lary which  gives  English  a  unique  place  among  mod- 
ern languages.  The  skeleton  of  our  English  tongue 
has  always  remained  Teutonic,  despite  the  unusually 
large  number  of  words  it  has  assimilated  from  French 
and  other  foreign  sources.  In  our  vocabulary,  which 
has  been  so  vastly  swollen  by  our  French  borrowings, 
the  native  English  words,  if  one  may  venture  to  make 


in  ffl)ut  <ZEttgH0&  8>peec&  149 


a  rough  distinction,  are  employed  to  signify  objects 
of  domestic  association,  homespun  ideas  and  thoughts, 
while  the  words  of  Romance  origin  are  reserved  to 
express  objects  that  are  associated  with  luxury  and 
delicate  culture  and  to  convey  subtle  shades  of 
thought.  When  two  or  more  words  are  used  to  sig- 
nify very  much  the  same  thing,  the  genius  of  the 
English  speech  tends  to  differentiate  and  to  restrict 
the  words  to  separate  and  special  senses.  This,  of 
course,  makes  the  language  more  flexible  and  more 
facile  as  a  medium  of  expression. 

Just  as  English  was  enriched  by  contact  with 
Erench,  so  it  has  been  improved,  though  to  a  less  ex- 
tent, by  attrition  and  contact  with  its  sister  dialects. 
By  elbowing  its  way  to  the  front  through  the  various 
dialects  which  jostled  it,  the  dialect  which  developed 
into  standard  English  naturally  lost  by  attrition  most 
of  the  grammatical  peculiarities  that  hampered  it.  It 
was,  of  course,  a  decided  advantage  to  the  London  dia- 
lect, in  its  struggle  for  the  distinction  of  the  standard 
speech,  to  throw  off  such  inflections  as  proved  a  hin- 
drance to  its  complete  development.  Most  philolo- 
gists used  to  regard  the  loss  of  superfluous  inflections 
a  symptom  of  decadence  in  a  language.  Now,  how- 
ever, such  a  process  is  regarded  a  sign  of  virility  and 
progress.  "The  fewer  and  shorter  the  forms,  the 
better,"  affirms  the  eminent  Danish  philologist  Jes- 
peren.  "The  analytical  structure  of  modern  European 
languages  is  so  far  from  being  a  drawback  to  them 
that  it  gives  them  an  unimpeachable  superiority  over 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  same  language."  This  high 
authority  even  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  "the  so- 


£ttie0ticmg  at 


called  full  and  rich  forms  of  the  ancient  languages 
are  not  a  beauty,  but  a  deformity.'7 

Thus  in  the  process  of  its  development  standard 
English  was  gradually  freed  of  many  of  its  pristine 
grammatical  encumbrances,  to  take  its  place  in  the 
front  rank  of  living  tongues  as  the  best  equipped  for 
a  universal  language.  And  the  end  is  not  yet.  For 
the  work  of  simplifying  is  still  in  progress.  The  his- 
tory of  our  speech  from  the  fifteenth  century  down 
to  the  present  day  proves  nothing  more  conclusively 
than  that  English  tends  ever  to  become  more  and 
more  simple  in  inflection  and  syntax.  Witness  the 
dwindling  use  of  the  subjunctive  mood,  which  has 
been  almost  driven  from  the  field  of  modern  English 
syntax  by  the  constantly  encoraching  indicative.  An- 
other example  in  point  is  the  transfer  of  the  function 
of  the  absolute  case  from  the  dative,  an  oblique  case, 
to  the  nominative.  This  shifting  has  been  accom- 
plished since  the  time  of  Milton,  who  represents  the 
transitional  period.  It  is  evident  then  that  the  ten- 
dency of  standard  English  is  in  the  direction  of  sim- 
plicity, and  its  future  growth  will,  no  doubt,  be  along 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Certainly  its  vis  inertiae 
seems  destined,  unless  acted  upon  by  some  violent  ex- 
ternal force,  to  move  in  that  direction. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  standard  English,  like 
every  spoken  language,  has  undergone  change,  from 
age  to  age.  Some  words  become  obsolete  and  drop 
out  of  the  vocabulary.  New  words  are  coined  to  take 
their  places,  and  if,  after  a  period  of  probation,  they 
prove  acceptable,  they  are  received  into  good  usage 
and  are  recognized  as  standard.  In  this  manner  the 


in  SDur  (ZBnglte!)  %peecft 


waste  that  necessarily  occurs  in  living  English,  as  in 
every  living  language,  is  repaired.  Thus  the  English 
speech  grows,  adapting  itself  to  the  many  and  varied 
conditions  which  are  exacted  of  it  as  the  medium  for 
the  communication  of  thought  for  the  millions  of 
people  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  who  use  it. 
Here  and  there  slight  variations  from  the  normal, 
slight  departures  from  the  standard,  are  made.  But 
unless  the  locutions  which  constitute  these  departures 
possess  extraordinary  vitality  and  force,  unless  they 
persist  with  dogged  tenacity  and  supply  a  real  need 
in  the  language,  they  are  doomed  to  perish  without 
leaving  any  appreciable  effect  upon  the  standard 
speech. 

What,  then,  determines  standard  English?  The 
reply,  in  a  nutshell,  is  the  usage  of  the  best  writers 
and  speakers.  Standard  English  is  determined  by 
the  habitual  manner  the  learned  and  cultured  employ 
to  express  their  thoughts  and  feelings  in  words.  The 
customary  mode  of  expression  now  in  vogue  among 
the  most  careful  users  of  English  has  been  inherited 
from  the  generations  of  writers  and  speakers  who 
have  employed  our  speech  in  the  centuries  past  as 
their  vernacular.  The  leading  English  authors  from 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Dryden, 
Swift,  Johnson  and  a  host  of  others,  down  to  the  liv- 
ing writers,  have  each  in  his  way  contributed  to  make 
our  standard  literary  language.  Each  of  these,  it  is 
true,  has  influenced  standard  English  in  some  degree. 
!N"o  one  can  fail  to  see  the  impress  which  such  an  ec- 
centric writer  as  Doctor  Johnson,  the  literary  dictator 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  stamped  upon  the  standard 


152  €Xue0tion0  at 

English  of  his  age.  Our  speech  shows  no  less  dis- 
tainctly  marked  traces  of  the  influence  of  Addison. 
For  Addison's  admirable  style,  with  its  characteristic 
grace,  crispness  and  lightness  of  touch,  even  John- 
son himself  warmly  commended,  although  the  great 
Cham's  innate  tendency  to  the  stilted,  the  turgid  and 
the  ponderous  prevented  him  from  approximating  in 
his  practice  what  in  his  preaching  he  so  ardently  held 
up  for  the  imitation  and  emulation  of  others.  To  men- 
tion another  concrete  example,  in  more  recent  times 
standard  English  has  been  swayed  somewhat  by  Ma- 
caulay's  passionate  love  of  antithesis  and  of  the  peri- 
odic structure  of  the  sentence.  Attention  might  be 
called,  likewise,  to  the  influence  of  Gibbon's  chaste 
and  classic  style  (albeit  a  trifle  heavy  and  wearisome 
at  times)  upon  our  standard  literary  language,  or  to 
the  influence  of  another  prominent  author  whose 
style  is  still  more  unique  and  distinctive — Thomas 
Carlyle.  Away  back  in  the  early  history  of  English 
one  may  observe  in  the  style  of  the  West-Saxon  trans- 
lator of  Bede's  "Ecclesiastical  History"  a  trick  of 
repetition  which  has  made  a  lasting  impression  on  our 
standard  speech ;  and  it  still  survives  in  such  familiar 
tautological  phrases  as  areally  and  truly,"  "bright 
and  shining,"  "pure  and  simple,"  "without  let 
or  hindrance,"  "toil  and  delve,"  "confirm  and 
strengthen,"  and  "lord  and  master."  All  of  these 
locutions,  as  Professor  Kittredge  informs  us,  in  his 
suggestive  book,  "Words  and  Their  Ways  in  English 
Speech,"  are  in  high  favor,  and  are  recognized  as 
standard  English.  Euphuism  is  a  movement  that 
swept  over  Elizabethan  English  in  the  wake  of  the 


fn  ffi)ur  <£ngH0i)  Speech  153 

tidal  wave  of  ink-horn  terms,  materially  affecting  the 
standard  speech.  Even  Shakespeare  could  not  quite 
resist  the  fashion  of  Euphuism,  and  his  English  is 
indeed  slightly  colored  thereby.  Another  trick  of 
style  which  has  cropped  out  here  and  there,  from  the 
days  of  Spenser  down  to  the  present  age,  is  that  of 
employing  archaic  terms  with  the  intent  to  revive 
them.  On  the  score  of  this  affectation  the  most  fla- 
grant sinner  among  modern  authors  is  William  Mor- 
ris, whose  writings  furnish  a  veritable  treasure-trove 
of  curious  and  amusing  archaisms.  But  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  multiply  examples.  Let  those  already 
given  suffice  to  illustrate  how  standard  English  has 
been  swayed,  from  time  to  time,  even  by  the  devices 
and  attractions  of  dame  fashion. 

It  is  to  be  noted,  in  conclusion,  that  standard  Eng- 
lish is  no  longer  confined  to  the  usage  of  any  given 
locality,  as  was  the  case  in  the  early  history  of  the 
language.  The  English  language  spoken  in  London 
does  not  now  enjoy  the  distinction  of  determining  the 
standard  universally  accepted.  A  special  mode  of 
utterance  or  a  special  idiom  is  not  now  regarded 
proper  simply  and  solely  because  it  is  sanctioned  by 
London  usage.  Indeed,  that  British  metropolis  ap- 
pears rather  to  have  broken  with  its  enviable  past 
and  worthy  traditions  in  the  matter  of  its  English, 
for  London  is  now  recognized  as  the  home  of  the 
"cockney"  dialect.  Nowhere  more  than  on  the  lips 
of  the  native  Londoner  is  the  purity  of  our  noble 
tongue  in  jeopardy.  Strange  to  say,  the  English  ver- 
nacular of  the  native  Londoner  has,  of  late  years, 
fallen  into  disrepute  by  reason  of  its  abounding  im- 


at 


proprieties,  its  teeming  provincialisms  and  its  sole- 
cisms. No  educated  man  who  professes  English  as 
his  mother-tongue  would,  to-day,  think  of  making 
his  speech  conform  to  the  usage  of  London  as  re- 
flected in  the  local  dialect.  It  used  to  be  the  custom 
to  take  London  English  as  a  model  ;  but  not  so  now, 
since  the  local  speech  has  become  so  corrupt  as  to 
prove  a  constant  menace  to  the  purity  of  the  living 
tongue.  Perhaps  it  should  be  added,  in  order  to  fore- 
stall adverse  criticism,  that  standard  English  is,  of 
course,  heard  in  London,  as  elsewhere,  upon  the  lips 
of  the  educated  and  cultured.  But  it  is  worth  while  to 
emphasize  this  fact,  even  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  that 
standard  English  is  no  longer  confined  to  any  given 
locality  or  to  any  one  country,  for  the  matter  of  that, 
but  is  written  and  spoken  in  America,  in  far-off  India, 
and  in  other  remote  parts  of  the  world  as  well  as  in 
the  British  Isles.  For  wherever  the  English  language 
is  employed,  whether  written  or  spoken,  in  accordance 
with  the  best  traditions  of  that  rich,  flexible  and  co- 
pious tongue,  there  standard  English  is  found,  in 
whatever  quarter  of  the  globe  it  may  be. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUB  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


' 


DEC  17  1918 

FEB  171919 


B  I92J 


3  Om- 6, '14 


YB  01629 


